Jonah Hex V2 #51 "Divining Rod"

 Jonah Hex V2 #51 Mar '10

"Divining Rod"

Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti - story, Dick Giordano - art and cover 

Our story opens with the graveside service of Brett Singleton, his grieving widow clas in black and the local preacher giving the eulogy. He tells of Singleton founding the town and how he wielded a branch from a hazel tree to locate sources of water. singleton hoped to expand his powers to locate minerals as well. Singleton eventually found a tree that bore such a branch and used it to locate iron and then claimed he could find silver and gold. 

He made the istake of talking too loosely of this ability and some neer-do-wells ended his life for the new branch. The preacher explains that the local sheriff is not able to avenge Singleton, so the preacher called upon a man to find the killers and return the blessed branch. That man is Jonah Hex.

Jonah is mounted upon his horse on a hill overlooking the cemetery and calmley dismounts and walks his horse down the hill. Hes strides up to the widow and demands where she is supposed to meet him. She stutters a response and Hex points out she is young, beautiful, and thrirty years younger than her late husband. She asks if he is suggesting something and Hex states that he is. She slaps him across the face and then lunges at him and the townsfolks have to restrain her. 

The preacher asks why Hex said that and Hex says he is investigating, like he was hired to do. The preacher assures Hex that she had nothing to do with it, but Hex has his doubts and rides off. The preacher the tries to calm the widow Rhonna, reminding her that Hex will find the killers.

Four men are camped in the desert. Ho continues to dig a hole already six feet ddep. Stan asks if he has found anything but Ho replies in the negative. Jameson asks if Stan knows how to work the divining rod. Stan gets riled up and tells Jameson to get in the hole and relieve Ho. Stan says that if Singleton got the stick to find gold then he could too. The fourth man says maybe they need someone else might be better at it and Stan demands to know who.

Night has fallen and Jonah is in the local saloon having dinner. The preacher bursts in and is outraged that Hex is dining.Hex says he will work as he sees fit and the preacher should go get the widow and retrun with her to the saloon. The preacher says that he will not wake her after the day she has had. Jonah asks how he knows she is asleep, did he tuck her in? The preacher is astonished and Hex it will be much more unpleasant if he has to go do it. The preacher says he won’t allow her to be bothered again. Hex cocks his head and replies that he doesn’t quite know what is transpiring but he’ll figure it out. If he can garner a confession it would save a lot of time. The preacher storms out of the saloon.

Later the preacher, on horseback and wielding a torch, rides up to the widow’s house. The men from the camp are abducting her and the preacher sees them but does not intervene. 

The preacher bursts back into the saloon saying the killers have abducted the widow. Hex asks how does he know she didn’t go along quietly. The preacher explai s that they struck her, he saw it all. Jonah asks how good a look he got in the dark. It’s pretty nard to identify men that nobody in town has laid eyes on, especially in the dark with only a torch. How is he so damn sure it’s them? The preacher asks who esle it could be? They were strangers and the preacher assumed…..

Hex pulls his sidearm on the preacher. Hex tells the preacher to pay close attention. The preacher knows those men, he actually partnered with them to kill Singleton. A real man of God would have nothing to do with a divining rod. The preacher has had his eyes glued to the widow and with Singleton gone she would need a shoulder to cry on. She would eventually fall in love with her comforter. The preacher shous that Hex is a liar.

Jonah slams the table forward into the preacher’s gut, gta s his head and slams it into the tabletop. Jonah sticks his gun in the preacher’s forehead and says the sins can be confessed to him or the Lord directly. Silence falls on the saloon and everyone stands there agog. The preacher the breaks into tears saying that he loves her so much. If Hex had killed those men everything would have been perfect. The people in the saloon grab him, shouting for a rope. 

Hex tells them they can’t kill him yet. He grabs the preacher by the hair, demanding to know where they took her. The preacher says they are in the deseert where Singleton had found something. Hex tells the people to get the preacher a horse. They call for the sheriff but Hex says the widow will pass judgment and anyone with a contrary opinion will sleep next to Singleton. 

At the camp Stan demands Rhanna make the divining rod work. She laughs that they are fools. Stan slaps her down but she explains the stick is worthless, it never worked and never will. Stan says they saw it work and she explains that Singleton owned all the surrounding land. He had found water by using the geology he learned in college in Gotham City but he salted the earth iron ore. He was going to bury gold and find it in front of some big investors. Everyone would be buying the land and Singleton and Rhonna would leave before anyone wised up. 

Hex and the preacher ride up and Hex pulls a gun on Stan and the others. Stan points his pistol at Rhonna and says she stays put. Hex wants to know who had a hand in the murder. Stan says he wants to know if the preacher was in on the scam. The preacher pleads ignorance and Stan says Rhonna explained everything and since the preacher pulled them into this, what was his plan. Rhonna asks what he is talking about. The preacher tells her to mind her own business 

It suddenly dawns on her that the preacher had a hand in Singleton’s death. Hex spills the beans that Singleton was killed so the preacher could win her heart. She rushes at the preacher, the rod in her hand. With a quick lunge she buries the stick in the preacher’s eye. He falls to the ground and she straddles his chest, stabbing the rod into his other eye killing him. Stan tells Hex to stay his hand as the husband and wife were gonna scam the entire town. Hex says that ain’t his business. 

Rhonna says it is true but they didn’t wrong anyone. Hex says she wronged the preacher and she says it was because they killed her husband. Jonah says he has a problem, a woman that killed a man who killed nobody and the these other four men. Stan says he has no proof and they draw on Jonah, and the four of them die quickly by Jonah’s hand as he guns them down. 

Rhonna, kneeling in the dirt, asks if Jonah will kill her. Jonah says they had a bounty on their heads and she doesn’t. She mounts a horse and says Jonah will never see her again. Jonah replies “Never say never.”

Statistics for This Issue
Men Killed by Jonah - Four
Running Total - 860 (432 past, 55 future, 15 Vertigo, 358 V2)
Jonah's Injuries - None.
Timeline - Two days
Rape Percentage -  22% (11 of 51)

It was fantastic to see Giordano do an issue. I love his work and I think this was the last book he worked on prior to his death in March of 2010. 

The story was the kind I liked, something with lots of twists and turns. And Jonah figuring things out just by observing how folks behaved and putting the things together. Jonah being more of a detective of human nature rather than a tracker in the wild was a good change. This is one of the top notch stories of the series. Also, the mention of Gotham City was a nice foreshadowing of the All-Star Western series on the horizon. 

But the elephant in the room is the Once Again Crazy Assed Christian trope. While I despise this as lazy writing this time it was a liiiiitle more believable in that this was a man in love who stumbled trying to win a woman’s love. Rather than taking scripture out of context and becoming the personified wrath of god, we see a man with natural needs taking the wrong path to get what he wants. Granted, he could have been the sheriff, the mayor, anybody in town and the story would have worked.

Next issue: Deep into the swamps once more and family problems.