Jonah Hex V2 #34 "Outrunning Shadows"

 Jonah Hex V2 #34 Oct '08

"Outrunning Shadows"

Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray - story, Mark Sparacio - art, Andy Kubert and Pete Carlsson - cover

There is a lot of narration with this one, so I'll explains the visuals in normal text and the narration afterwards in italics. We start off in a rainstorm and we see Hex's coat, hat, and pistols placed into a box with the Confederate flag burnt into the lid. The wooden box is placed in a hole and Hex buries it. Hex walks away from a graveyard, soaked to the skin, new hat, shovel over his shoulder and bottle to his lips, sauntering down the hill away from the graveyard he just visited.

The narration explains about Jonah coming to Oregon, trying to reinvent himself, getting away from his past. What led up to this decision were the events outlined in issue #28 and the declarations of the town, judging Hex pushed him to hanging up his irons and starting over.

Killing Old Habits

Jonah, by himself, is sawing logs, framing up a house. The leaves fly as time passes and when the snow hits, Jonah bags and guts a deer.

Jonah's past company was mostly horses and an occasional dog, any people that became close to him eventually died. Having amassed a fortune in bounties over the years, he no longer had need for gainful employment and he took to spending his time building this new life. His father taught Jonah carpentry and other manual skills (probably by forcing him to do the work while Woodson sloshed about in his liquor). People can get along quite well when they are newly married, but once the house is settled and children are gone, the true test of a person is how they handle the quiet, when the mind works on itself.

This Was a Bad Idea.

Jonah arrives in town on a buckboard and goes into the Clarkson hardware store. Picking up four bales of hay for his horses, Jonah is asked his name and he replies "Hillwig". The store owner's daughter inquires if Jonah is the man that built out by Red Creek and Jonah states that he is. Getting his supplies loaded, the store owner suggests that Jonah come to church so that folks in town aren't so suspicious of him.

Just then five men ride into town, commenting on the appearance of the daughter standing in the doorway of the store. One of the men takes affront to Jonah not acknowledging them and they ask where they can find a room and drink. As the men leave, the owner tells Jonah that he best leave such men alone, and Jonah replies that cowards act brave in numbers.

As Jonah rides off, the daughter comments on Jonah being a strange man and her father tells her to stay away from him, as the daughter has a propensity to hang with men of trouble.

In the saloon, the men, led by Elmsford, explain to the proprietor that they will start taking fifty percent of the profits in order to provide protection. When the saloon owner resists, they start shooting up the place until he agrees.

Some time later we see Jonah digging a hole for his newly constructed privy as the daughter rides up with a blueberry pie and a lot of flirtateous ways. Jonah brushes her off but she is having none of it, priding herself on getting her way. As she rides off, Hex tosses the pie, basket and all, into the outhouse hole.

Some unspecified time later Jonah is seen riding into town and the hardware store is a smoldering ruin. Jonah asks a kid what has happened. The kid explains that Mr. Clarkson had a fire in his store and some say the new guys in town started it. Hex asks if Clarkson is around and the kid gestures over to a funeral procession going down main street. The gang of men tip their hats to the daughter at the funeral goes by and she has to be restrained to keep from attacking them.

During the funeral atop the cemetery hill, Jonah stands back, far from the crowd. The daughter sees him and the ceremony ends.

Another unspecified time passes and we watch Jonah chopping wood.

The daughter, Sandy, talks to the saloon owner, taking a job as a saloon girl.

Hex is chopping wood.

A drunken fat man in the saloon says he would like to break in the new girl, indicating Sandy.

Hex breaks a sweat chopping wood.

Sandy runs away from the customer, insulting his manhood.

Hex chops wood.

The customer beats Sandy.

Hex throws an axe.

Sandy, bloodied, falls to the floor.

Hex walks away, the axe buried in the tree.

Sandy stands outside, bruised and bloodied, crying to the heavens, asking for someone to help her.

More time passes.

Darkness at the Hex cabin. Jonah sits in front of the fire and Sandy shows up, saying she had nowhere else to go. Hex shuts the door in her face and she throws it open, shouting that he can't turn her out. She jumps him and they make love right there on the cabin floor.

The next morning Sandy wakes up on the floor and finds Hex out chopping wood. We get to see just how much firewood Hex has stockpiled. He tells her that all he wanted was to stay away but her manners and politeness and sex and pies is not what he wants and he is not going to save her.

She says that she needs help and Jonah says that someone is always needing help, someone always needs to see the bullies punished, someone always needs their father avenged and Hex isn't interested in her as a friend or a wife so she can just hike back to town. He calls her a whore and she leaves.

Later Jonah is sitting in his cabin, in front of the fire. He is speaking aloud to God, stating that God is forcing Jonah's hand into action. God uses persistence and guilt and the horrors that others experience to get His ways accomplished. Jonah states that the Word conflicts with itself and that angels are just assassins with wings and when the judgement comes, men like Hex will be condemned as killers and sinners.

More time passes and Jonah drive the wagon into town during a downpour. He sees Elmsford and his men in front of the saloon. They greet Hex and he tells them to not go anywhere. Jonah then asks  the kid from earlier where Sandra is. The kid explains that she can be found in the local cemetery due to a freak accident that some townsfolk think was foul play. 

Jonah ends up at the graves of Sandra and her father. Jonah chastises her for not leaving him alone, dragging him into her problems and a wrathful God using Jonah to settle the score. Jonah digs up the box he buried earlier and we then watch Jonah, soaked to the skin in his old Confederate garb, storm into the saloon. He calls out Elmsford, saying Elmsford has the blood of innocents on his hands.

Elmsford, confused, asks why Hillwig has shooting irons. Jonah replies, "Muh name ain't Hillwig. It's Jonah Woodson Hex, the man what dangles from strings that reach ta the heavens grasped in hands as cruel as any can imagine."

Jonah fires six times, Elmsford stopping a bullet in the heart and forehead, his four henchmen getting it in either the heart or forehead.

We then see Hex astride his horse in the storm, his cabin fully engulfed in flame, and the narration states that men often try to change their ways, but for Jonah Hex, escaping the past is as useless as trying to outrun his own shadow.

Statistics for This Issue
Men Killed by Jonah - 5.

Running Total - 712 (432 past, 55 future, 15 Vertigo, 210 V2)
Jonah's Injuries - None.

Timeline - This covers quite some time as Jonah builds the cabin, goes through Fall, Winter and into Spring. We see Sandras tombstone giving her death as April 16th, 1871, so this is Summer 1870 to Spring 1871. So let's say nine months. Sandra's father died on April 12th, four days earlier.

This story has me sooooo conflicted. The writing is top notch, completely out of the park. It has Jonah trying to leave a past that won't leave him alone, not in old enemies reappearing, like Quentin Turnbull, but in circumstances of innocent people suffering at the hands of evil men. Jonah being in the wrong place at the wrong time, his sense of Justice being heavily stirred, ends up doing what he does best, killing the evil men. And all of this Hex blames on a God that delights in using men for His own ends, a God that won't allow Jonah to have the peace that his soul longs for. This is prime tragedy in the Hex tradition.

But the artwork by Mark Sparacio is what almost craters this issue for me. It is stiff, it is flat, it is almost amateurish and is among the worst that appeared in this series. Some characters were almost photorealistic but Jonah never appeared fearsome, his scar never horrifying, and oft times his face changed from panel to panel. And I actually laughed out loud when we finally see just how much firewood that Jonah has chopped in all of his sexual frustration.

This story spanning a huge swath of time is something that is unique in this series, it does present a small problem in that during Christmas of 1870, Jonah was dealing with Mark Harley back in issue #5. I suppose that Jonah COULD have still been bounty hunting during this story, but it seems very unlikely, given his stated desire to leave his past behind.

So thumbs up for the story, but thumbs down for the artwork.

Next Issue - A cowardly sheriff, a young wife, and we wade into a small bit of controversy.