Jonah Hex

**Jonah Hex** is a fictional character and hero in comic books published by the American company DC Comics. He first appeared in *All-Star Western* Vol. 2, #10 (March 1972), but his first appearance in *Swamp Thing* comics was in *Swamp Thing* Vol. 2, #85 (April 1989). He was created by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga.

## History

Jonah Hex was a legendary bounty hunter on the American western frontier in the 19th Century. His reputation as the deadliest man alive followed him everywhere, and he killed hundreds of men up until his death. Hex was a gruff anti-hero with a deep personal code of honor that kept him on the side of good despite his violent tendencies.

### Origins

Raised by his alcoholic father Woodson Hex, Jonah was a regular victim of physical abuse as a child. His father eventually stopped supporting him and sold him into slavery with an Apache tribe at the age of 13 during 1851. They worked him constantly until one day, in 1853, when he saved their chieftain from a puma, and he was welcomed as a full-fledged member of the tribe. The chief took Jonah in as his own son, but his adopted brother Noh-Tante grew jealous. Noh-Tante shared Jonah's affections for a young girl named White Fawn, so in 1854 he betrayed his brother during their manhood rite at the age of 16 and left Jonah for dead with their enemies the Kiowa. He is rescued by Cavalry patrollers, who were hunting scalps of Native Americans to Fort Hastings for $25 each (a fortune at the time); they shoot him in the gut when he tries to stop their slaughter on two Kiowa kids. Left for dead a second time, he is nursed back to health by an old trapper in the woods. Returning to his tribe's camp, he finds them long since gone.

### American Civil War

In 1861, Jonah joined the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War to protect his homeland, rising to the rank of lieutenant in the Cavalry alongside his close friend Jeb Turnbull. His conscience made it difficult for him to fight against abolitionists, and he eventually decided to surrender to the Union Army at Fort Charlotte. Despite his refusal to give up information on the whereabouts of his men, they were able to track them down by the mud on his shoes. Hex's entire unit was captured, and the General made his men believe that he had given them up. There is a massacre executed by the higher command, and barely a handful of men survive to escape. Jonah Hex goes down in Southern history as a turncoat and a traitor.

### Mark of the Demon

Eventually returning to his village in 1866, Jonah finds that Noh-Tante had since married White Fawn. He declares Noh-Tante's betrayal to the chieftain, but the accusations were denied and it was decided that they would deliberate through trial by combat. Noh-Tante sabotages Jonah's tomahawk, forcing him to cheat and end the fight with his knife. For breaking the rules of combat and murdering his son, the chieftain declares that Jonah will be branded with the mark of the demon and exiled under penalty of death. Years later when he returned again to rescue a kidnapped white woman, he was captured and White Fawn was shot dead by the chieftain for trying to help him escape. Jonah killed his adoptive father in return, and gunned down half the tribe who went after him with the help of Henri d'Aubergnon.

### Bounty Hunter

Jonah Hex was inspired to become a bounty hunter after murdering his first criminal, the outlaw "Mad Dog" Lucas McGill. He gunned down Mad Dog while the man was beating his wife outside of a saloon; in his inebriated stupor, Hex believe him to be his own father Woodson abusing his mother Ginny. The local deputy insisted that even drunk it was the fastest draw he'd ever seen, and gave him the massive bounty on McGill's head. Hex accepted the money and scattered it on the streets as he left town by horseback. His first bounty poster was in 1866 on an old army buddy named Edward Cantwell. The manhunter Arbee Stoneham stole Hex's reward by murdering Cantwell and then humiliated him by taking his guns. Eight years later, they met again while Hex was bringing down the Jason Crowley gang, and he intended to take revenge on Stoneham but found him wheelchair-ridden; the two men went for a drink instead.

As a bounty hunter, Hex was hired by Vandal Savage to eliminate a time-traveler Batman in return for some of Napoleon Bonaparte's gold. Hex defeated the dark rider, but he refused the gold, keeping just a batarang as a souvenir.

### Weird Western Tales

The town of Paradise Corners hires him to take down a criminal named Big Jim, but when he thinks of settling down there they shun him and treat him like a monster. His next reward is a robber named Terry White, who betrays him after Hex finds him in the desert and nurses him back to health.

Jonah receives a dog named Iron Jaws when he tries to rescue a peaceful Pawnee tribe from their local town, and fails to save the girl who owned the dog. His former mentor Windy Taylor calls Jonah to help find his son Tod Taylor, who has turned outlaw; Tod guns down his father and Hex avenges the man who taught him. Iron Jaws dies after venturing deep into the desert to rescue Hex from dying of exposure where two outlaws had tied him up. He next takes down a corrupt sheriff who was scamming his town, and then a corrupt hanging judge at the next. Briefly he becomes the bodyguard to a sideshow attraction whose owner he murders after the man tries to frame him for a heinous crime. Finding an escaped psychopath on the run, his next bounty is the Gentleman Killer. Fort Lang is seemingly attacked by Indians, and Hex uncovers a railroad conspiracy to drive them off their land. When some bandits he's hunting down injure an old lady who had shown him kindness, he funds a children's hospital to make sure she gets the medicine she needs before chasing them down and slaughtering them.

While tracking down Blackjack Jorgis, Hex is ambushed by ex-Confederates sent by Quentin Turnbull to avenge the death of his son. His mentor Hank Brewster dies in the gunfight, and his first horse the General is killed by stray bullets. Briefly hired by the U.S. Secret Service, he toppled an assassination conspiracy against Ulysses S. Grant. Temporarily blinded from his injuries, he takes down an entire gang without his sight. He fights corrupt army officials when he takes down a greedy landowner robbing pioneers and letting them die. Turnbull puts a price on his head and begins sending outlaws after him. Women's suffrage activists hire him to protect their rallies, and he agrees to defend them even though he doesn't support their political cause. His next bounty is a gang that does his job for him by shooting each other to death out of greed. He is challenged to duel a young boy whose father died at Fort Charlotte, and pretends to lose. Returning to Virginia to make peace with Jeb's father, Quentin Turnbull has him captured and put on trial with a jury of Fort Charlotte survivors. Hex tries to explain his innocence, but Turnbull refuses to hear it and they have him condemned to death. Jonah escapes after a physical altercation with the old man, but is unable to clear his name.

One of his oldest friends challenges him to a duel for pay, and Jonah is forced to watch the man die. During a kidnapping rescue, he gets into a knife-fight with a bear and wins. Rescuing the girl, he realizes that her father is slaughtering the local Indians led by "Crazy" Joe Bigfoot and intervenes on their behalf. He is attacked by another bounty hunter who tries to steal his rewards, but Jonah tricks the man and leaves him to die in the desert. In the next town, he uncovers another corrupt lawman who is exploiting the executions for commercial business. Bigfoot returns to challenge Hex, but is sentenced to death by his own people when he violates a treaty. A man asks Jonah to train him as a gunfighter so he can avenge the death of his family, but when Jonah realizes the boy is an outlaw he kills his own student. Wyoming sheep-herders task him with taking down a legendary wolf, but he discovers a murderer instead.

### Wanted

Hex takes down two criminals who organize a child fighting arena for gambling. U.S. Secret Service agent Ned Landon hires him to take down the El Papagayo gang, but it's revealed to be an elaborate plot by Quentin Turnbull. He barely escapes with his life to discover that he has been framed for the murder of a small-town Sheriff. Briefly taken in by a kindly blind man, he protects the cripple's homestead from greedy miners. Having murdered Landon, Turnbull reveals the gambit to Hex and puts a woman named Joanna Mosby in danger. He hires a master-of-disguise named Chameleon to murder Hex, but they leave him in a burning house and escape. The woman he saved in Paradise Corners briefly harbors him from the law. When he's captured by a U.S. Marshal who dies shortly afterward, Jonah takes the man's identity and rids a small town of bank robbers. Jonah takes a job to rescue a kidnapped girl from the Apache tribe that raised him, and the bounty hunter Henri d'Aubergnon tracks him down. Forced to slaughter many of his former tribesmen after an argument with the chief, he rescues the girl and d'Aubergnon sacrifices himself so they can escape. Papagayo ambushes him again while he is acting as a mercenary for the Mexican government. This leads to a massive shootout at an army fort to protect a shipment of gold bullion, although Hex discovers it was a worthless decoy after dozens of men have been massacred.

### Five Warriors from Forever

The Lord of Time assembled a team known as the Five Warriors from Forever when he believed that his time machine the Eternity Brain would end all existence. This team included Jonah Hex alongside Black Pirate, Enemy Ace, Miss Liberty and the Viking Prince; to make them powerful enough to become a threat, they were each energized with a special force. Their purpose was to fight the Justice League and Justice Society to strengthen their resolve through defeat, which they succeeded in doing. Eventually the Five Warriors rebelled against their master and assaulted the Palace of Eternity. Hex got into a gun-fight with a T-Rex, but they were defeated and eventually returned to their own times using the Cosmic Treadmill.

He later encountered the Justice League separately, with several other Western heroes including Bat Lash, Cinnamon and Scalphunter. The Lord of Time sends members of the League back to the 19th Century in an absurd plot to rule the world. Jonah meets an amnesiac Green Lantern in the desert and nurses him back to health. They team up with the Elongated Man, the Flash and Zatanna to take down some robotic gunfighters while the League deals with an anti-matter asteroid that threatens to destroy the Earth. In the present, Superman defeats the Time Lord and restores things to normal.

### Crisis on Infinite Earths

He became involved in the first Crisis when he was summoned along with several other heroes to fight for the Monitor. Jonah Hex fought against the Shadow Demons alongside Bat Lash, Cyborg, Firebrand, Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Nighthawk, Psimon and Scalphunter. Alex Luthor and Harbinger gathered the heroes of several Earths to discuss strategy, and Hex was present in the crowd to witness Pariah's warnings.

### Hex

Jonah Hex disappeared in a flash of light one night at a saloon in 1875]]. He was abducted from his own era by the villainous Reinhold Borsten, who transported him into a post-apocalyptic Seattle, Washington in the 21st century. His intention was to use the time-traveling gunfighter as a warrior, but instead Jonah escaped and met a motorcycle gang named the Road Reapers. They immediately took him in after he rescued their warrior Stiletta, and he obtained a zonesuit to protect himself from radiation by killing their cowardly leader Falcon in self-defense. His next companions are a group of soldiers from the Vietnam War, although they were betrayed by a robotic duplicate of Stiletta and none survived except for a Captain Stanley Harris. Briefly, he becomes shotgun man for a drug dealer named Barnaby Blossom; when he discovers that Barnaby is getting kids hooked, he kills the man. The real Stiletta tracks him down, and they're stranded in the desert together without water after a roadside ambush. They survive by walking twelve miles to an oasis and fighting off killer mutant worms. Having attracted negative attention from the underworld Conglomerate by knocking over their drug shipment, Hex and Stiletta are hunted down by their mercenary Chain and defeat him in a junkyard. The Conglomerate enlists Hex to help them take down Borsten, and he gets captured by Brolin in a fight so that he can destroy the villain's time travel device after using it. Together, Hex and Stiletta infiltrate the complex, and Harris is sent home but Jonah doesn't make it to the time machine before it's destroyed. They escape as the building explodes, and Borsten apparently dies in the blast.

Hex gets newer and improved guns after he wins at a dangerous live shooting gallery, but Stiletta is kidnapped while he's fighting. He is then captured by a scientist named Dr. Adamant, but escapes and destroys his society before Jonah can be turned into a robot. His next challenge is an anti-sin cult called the Sin Killers, who he demolishes while rescuing the daughter of a local man. Borsten is revealed to have survived the explosion. Briefly, Jonah meets the Legion of Super-Heroes while they are traveling in their Time Bubble.

New York City's leading crime syndicate the Combine send Hex after their greatest enemy, the Batman, by framing him for Stiletta's murder; the two men fight and nearly kill each other. Realizing that they're on the same side, Hex helps Batman stop the Combine from unleashing giant killer robots on the populace. Stiletta is discovered to have been brainwashed and trained as a professional wrestler, calling herself *Blonde Spitfire*. Briefly, Jonah is captured by two cannibals and forced to escape through the sewers. Now enraged, he begins hunting down members of the Combine. The Road Reapers are captured by a group of warriors called the Dogs of War, who press them into slave labor for an alien named S'ven Tarah. Jonah is forced to fight the deadly brainwashed Stiletta, but he brings her back to normal after knocking her out.

Tarah reveals that he is a time-traveler and his slave camps are building a machine to thwart an alien invasion from the Xxggs. Hex is attacked by a rogue Chain again in revenge for their last battle, but defeats him a second time. Having been captured into the slave camp by Manta, Hex organizes a breakout to escape and fights Starkad on his way out. Harris reveals himself to be one of the War Dogs, and enlists Jonah's service. They fight against the Xxggs for the future of humanity and succeed, but Tarah explains that he is unable to send Hex back to his own time. On Thanksgiving Day, he gathers with Stiletta and remembers his family. Finding his own stuffed corpse in an amusement park, he takes comfort in the knowledge that someday he will get to go home. It is never explained how Jonah Hex returns to his own time.

### Two-Gun Mojo

Jonah begins to take up with another bounty hunter named Slow Go Smith who becomes his friend. Smith is killed by gun-toting zombies in a barn, and Hex is framed for his murder. Following their trail, Hex discovers that it's the work of a Snake Oil merchant named Doc "Cross" Williams. It's revealed that Williams studied voodoo in Haiti, and reanimated the corpse of Wild Bill Hickok as his personal bodyguard. They try to zombify Hex as well, but he escapes and tracks them down again. Jonah puts Hickok down again by beating him on the draw, then avenges his friend by leaving the Doc to die a slow brutal death at the hands of Apache raiders.

### Riders of the Worm and Such

Following the slaying of Stove Belly Jack's gang, Hex meets a giant worm monster in the desert. He teams up with a local Ranch who've been under attack by the creatures. It's explained that the monsters are half-bred rape children of an underground race and a human woman, calling themselves the Autumn Brothers. Hex rallies the ranchers to take the offensive. They launch an assault on the underground tunnel system where the rest of the worms live, slaughtering them as they go and blowing up their queen with dynamite.

### Shadows West

Jonah becomes a member of Buffalo Will's traveling Wild West Show after a trick-shooting midget named Long Tom saves his life. He reconnects with an old friend named Spotted Balls, and meets a local squaw prostitute who gave birth to a Bear Boy. She claims to have given birth after mating with a bear spirit. Hex decides to leave the camp with Spotted Balls and the squaw because he doesn't like the way things are run. This infuriates Buffalo Will, who sends an armed posse led by Long Tom to murder them. Jonah kills most of his pursuers using traps, but Spotted Balls dies in the final shoot-out. He is able to return the squaw and her cub to its father, and Jonah finally meets the mythical spirit people. Returning to camp with Long Tom's corpse, he swears to Buffalo Will that if he ever sees him again he'll kill him.

### Face Full of Violence

When a rich family hires him to track down their kidnapped son, he finds the boy has become part of an underground dog-fighting ring and is forced to put him down when he contracts rabies. In a conflict involving a stolen gold crucifix, he burns an entire mining town to the ground. Bat Lash helps him take revenge against a corrupt sheriff who framed him. The Mayor of a small town tries to execute him to cover up the incestuous rape of his mute daughter, but the townspeople lynch the politician instead. On Christmas Day, he gets into a gunfight killing a dozen men to protect one of his bounties from their revenge attempts. In the small town of Salvation]], he meets a local gang who pose as nuns and try to murder him before he can reveal their secret.

### Guns of Vengeance

Hex slaughters a town run by oil barons to avenge a friend for the death of her husband on their wedding day. He is forced to lynch one of his own friends for having raped and murdered a young girl, after the man lied to get Jonah's protection. One woman swears revenge on him for the death of her daughter, and he fakes his own murder to give her closure. In the swamps, he massacres an inbred hillbilly family who've been feeding lost travelers to their pet alligators. El Diablo helps him seek vengeance when carnival freaks try to lynch him. He also rescues a small Mormon population from extinction when a bigoted store owner places bounties on every man, woman and child in their camp.

### Death

Jonah Hex continues to act as a bounty hunter until the age of 66 in 1904, where he is married to a Native American woman named Tall Bird. His life story is documented by Michael Wheeler. The entertainer L.B. Farnham approaches him to become part of a Wild West Revue show in his old age, but Hex angrily refuses to let them turn him into a sideshow. Hex's last bounty was a gang run by bank robber George Barrow; he succeeded in wiping them out, but Barrow returned for revenge several days later. Playing cards in a Cheyenne saloon, Hex was murdered with Barrow's double-barreled shotgun while fumbling to put on his spectacles. His death was immediately avenged by the lawman Hank Crawford who gunned down the unarmed Barrow in cold blood. In his dying moments, Hex hallucinates and reflects on the life that he's lived.

Tall Bird and Wheeler attempt to give Jonah a proper Native American burial, but they are robbed at gunpoint by Farnham and an accomplice. Farnham has Wheeler shot and the widow left unconscious to die in a house fire while he steals Hex's corpse for his Wild West Revue. Jonah Hex is taxidermized to be put on display permanently in a gaudy outfit, and the two evil men meet their ends but his body is transported from location to location. His final resting place is as a dummy at a Westworld theme park. Eventually he is discovered by historians, but Tall Bird is revealed to have survived the fire and she claims his body. She does an interview with a young scholar to fill in the missing details in her husband's life, but they are assaulted by a Western memorabilia collector who demands to have the corpse at any cost. The evil collector is shot in the back before he can murder them, and it is implied that Jonah Hex's vengeful spirit returned to protect his wife from beyond the grave.

### Post-Mortem

Many years later, a supermodel and actress named Hex seems to become possessed when her right eye is cut out by members of the Agenda. She assists Superboy and displays psionic powers when she repeatedly fires an unloaded energy weapon, but this change in consciousness seems to be temporary. Eventually she decides to become a bounty hunter like her predecessor, riding Grokk the Living Gargoyle as her trusty steed.

He is reanimated during *Blackest Night* as an undead member of the Black Lantern Corps, wielding a power ring. He returns to plague Quentin Turnbull's descendant, Joshua Turnbull. Joshua attacks Hex with a rocket launcher but fails to destroy him. The young man pleads for his life to zombie versions of Jonah Hex and Quentin Turnbull, but his ancestor guns him down in cold blood. Every zombie is restored to normal when Hal Jordan defeats Nekron.

## Personality

Jonah Hex maintains a steady reputation of caring about nothing except for money, but he has a quiet altruistic side that he hides from people. His disposition towards strangers is heavily affected by the fact that most people tend to treat him like a monster. He has remarked on his Civil War service that he fought for the Confederate States Army because he felt the South was his country being invaded, not because of the war's racial motivations. He actually supported the abolitionist movement.

### Romantic Relationships

* **White Fawn** was Jonah's first love, a young maiden in the Apache tribe who raised him. She married his brother Noh-Tante when he was believed dead, and then died years later trying to help him escape from capture after he'd been exiled.
* **Cassie Wainwright** was Jonah's fiancee in 1859, the daughter of his military commander Col. Marcus Wainwright. She was placed in the care of several soldiers who were planning to rob the payroll, and they left her to be brutally murdered by the Comanche.
* **Mei Ling**
* **Stiletta** was a warrior that Hex met when he was trapped in the future. They kissed for the first time after he rescued her from a murderous roadside gang.
* **Tallulah Black**
* **Tall Bird** was a Native American woman who became Jonah's second wife, and was married to him at the time of his death. She outlived him by over a quarter of a century.

## Powers and Abilities

### Abilities

* **Driving:** Hex became an expert at driving various motor vehicles during his time in the 21st Century.
* **Equestrianism:** He is competent enough to easily pick up riding with an unfamiliar horse.
* **Firearms:** Hex was taught to shoot by the legendary gunslinger Windy Taylor. His reflexes are strong enough that he has proven to be faster on the draw than Wild Bill Hickok. He can also shoot perfectly blinded.
* **Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced):** Jonah Hex is highly trained in military self-defense, boxing and various Native American martial arts (mainly Apache). He has fought a bear head-on with nothing but his knife and won. He has also fought an alligator to death using his knife.
	+ **Swordsmanship:** As a once high-ranking cavalry officer during the Civil War, Jonah Hex is highly trained in the use of a saber. He's capable of deflecting and slicing a bullet in half.
* **Hunting:** From a young age in his training he was considered to be the best hunter in his Apache tribe.
* **Intimidation:** Jonah Hex's reputation is so great that some men believe him to be a supernatural figure, possessing immortality and the ability to cast spells against his enemies.
* **Survival**
* **Tracking:** From a young age in his training he was considered to be the best hunter in his Apache tribe.
* **Military Protocol**

## Paraphernalia

### Transportation

* **The General:** The General was Jonah Hex's original horse. He was eventually killed by stray gunfire.

### Weapons

* **Bowie Knife**
* **Cavalry Saber**
* **High-Caliber Rifle**
* **Revolvers**