History Comicbook / JonahHex

The character has appeared in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' and ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueAction'' episodes. Also, [[Film/JonahHex a feature film]] was released on June 18, 2010 starring Creator/JoshBrolin and Creator/MeganFox. The results were... less than auspicious, with reviews ranging from mixed to horrible, and a box office that suffered heavily (thanks mostly to competition from ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''). There is also the animated short, ''WesternAnimation/DCShowcaseJonahHex'', that serves as a bonus feature for ''WesternAnimation/BatmanUnderTheRedHood''; interestingly, it's written by Joe Lansdale, who wrote the Hex-starring Batman TAS episode "Showdown" (and some of the aforementioned Vertigo series). He was made part of the Series/{{Arrowverse}} with an appearance in the time-travelling series ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow''.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Hex is a cynical and immoral BountyHunter who cares about little aside from money. The villains tend to be irredeemable.

* MasterOfDisguise: The Chameleon.

* WhipItGood: Stiletta from ''Hex'' was an expert with a whip.

* LaserGuidedKarma[=/=]WhatAnIdiot: During his DC Showcase episode, a local prostitute tries to have Jonah killed and robbed a total of three times: [[spoiler:she tries to shoot him at point-blank range, her henchmen try and fail to kill him and she later tries to stab him in the mineshaft she leaves her victims in]]. When Jonah finally gets tired of this [[spoiler:and leaves her [[ClosedCircle alone in the darkened mineshaft filled with corpses]]]], it finally occurs to her that this may have all been '''''a really bad idea.'''''

* TheLoad: Amadeus Arkham is this to Jonah Hex during their days working together in Gotham. Arkham is completely useless in a fight, and never really improves during their time together. His only useful skills are his medical skills and knowledge about Gotham, neither of which have any use until after the fighting. On top of that, he isnt in the best physical shape and cant run or climb very well, needing Hex to save him almost constantly.

Eventually, he returned to his old Apache tribe and called his brother out for his treachery. They were made to fight a duel of honor with only [[AnAxeToGrind tomahawks]], but his brother had sabotaged Jonah's weapon and gloated about it with nobody else hearing. Jonah was forced to kill him with a knife, breaking the law, with no way of proving he had been cheated himself. The chief punished him by branding his face with a heated tomahawk, giving him the hideous "Mark of the Demon."

* OddCouple: Many stories contrast Jonah with the significantly friendlier ComicBook/BatLash. The ComicBook/{{New 52}} ''All-Star Western'' pairs Jonah with prissy Eastern criminal psychologist Dr. Amadeus Arkham. TheyFightCrime.

%%* CrusadingWidower

* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Jonah becomes this after being tossed through time to present-day Gotham City in the New 52 ''ComicBook/AllStarWestern''. He also spends some time in Metropolis.

* TheSavageIndian: While ''Jonah Hex does'' generally portray Indians in a sympathetic light, it also doesn't shy away from just how savage they could be if you got on their bad side, in particular their penchant for torture. In ''Two Gun Mojo'', Jonah cripples an especially nasty villain and leaves him for the approaching Apaches to find, knowing that they'll give him a long slow death.

* CorruptHick: In ''Weird Western Tales'' #17, Jonah clashes with Judge Hatchet; a HangingJudge who rules her small town with a fist of iron, sending her three sons to poison the cattle and burn the crops of anyone who refuses to knuckle under to her authority.

** In ''Weird Western Tales'' #17, Jonah clashes with Judge Hatchet; a female judge nicknamed 'The Hangin' Woman' for her harsh sentences. She is a CorruptHick who rules her small town with a fist of iron, sending her three sons to poison the cattle and burn the crops of anyone who refuses to knuckle under to her authority.
** Jonah confronts one in the story "The Hangman" in ''Weird Western Tales'' #35. Marshal Sam Lehman is a CorruptHick who is both the town marshal and judge. He makes almost every offence a hanging offence (such as hanging a saloon girl for filching ten dollars from a drunken cowhand) as the frequent public hangings attract business to the town.

* KillerOutfit: In ''Weird Western Tales'' #17, Jonah shoves a CorruptHick HangingJudge off a cliff. However, rather than falling to her death, she suffers a KarmicDeath when her scarf snags on a tree sticking out of the cliff and snaps her neck.

* NooseCatch: In ''Weird Western Tales'' #17, Jonah shoves a CorruptHick HangingJudge off a cliff. However, rather than falling to her death, she suffers a KarmicDeath when [[KillerOutfit her scarf snags on a tree]] sticking out of the cliff and snaps her neck.

* DeadGuyOnDisplay: Jonah's final fate. His body was stuffed, dressed in a "singing cowboy" outfit, and put on display in a wild west show. The ignominy (and the fact that he's used to represent the opposite of who he is) is palpable. Hex actually finds it comforting when he sees it himself - it meant he would someday get back to his own time.
** In the ComicBook/{{New 52}} he sees his stuffed corpse on display in Metropolis and rather than comfort him it sends him straight into a HeroicBSOD that ends up putting him in a coma after a nasty DUI accident. However, in this continuity, its eventually revealed that the corpse isnt him, it's an imposter that took on Hex's identity during the year he was missing from his own time. Hex ends up killing him when he returns from the present, using the name "George Barrow".
* DeadlyDistantFinale: Michael Fleischer's "The Death of Jonah Hex" from ''DC Special Series'' #16, where in 1904, an aged Jonah is shot at a card table as he reaches for his glasses, by a revenge-seeking George Barrow. It was presented with the tone of an UnreliableNarrator, however. Gray and Palmiotti's final issue, ''All-Star Western'' #34, revisits this, [[spoiler: and shows that during Jonah's sojourn in the future with Comicbook/BoosterGold (where his face got fixed), some two-bit bounty hunter [[DeadPersonImpersonation claiming to be him]] has made himself some enemies in town, and ''he'' was the "Jonah Hex" that got himself killed. The series (and Gray and Palmiotti's 100+ issue run) ends with Jonah and Tallulah Black sailing into the sunset in search of peace instead.]]

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Jonah Hex. His name is two words meaning 'curse'.

** This seems to be his thing in TheMovie, to the point of coughing up a raven and being able to bring others BackFromTheDead as well.

* RecycledINSPACE: In the ''Hex'' series, Jonah was transported to the 21st century and became somewhat of a post-apocalyptic warrior, reminiscent of Mad Max.

He had a few miniseries in Creator/VertigoComics with a supernatural bent, went on to a [[ComicBook/JonahHex2005 new DCU series]] that, with UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode having lost any meaningful power, was even {{Darker|AndEdgier}} and [[BloodierAndGorier Gorier]] than before, and eventually came full circle, returning to the pages of ''ComicBook/AllStarWestern'' in the ComicBook/{{New 52}} as the main character.

* RealityEnsues: Jonah's girlfriend Gina from modern day insists on coming with him when Booster Gold sends him back to his own time. In her defense, she puts up a good effort, but simply doesnt have the endurance needed and soon dies from heat stroke, exhaustion and a gun injury in her leg.

He had a few miniseries in Creator/VertigoComics with a supernatural bent, went on to a [[ComicBook/JonahHex2005 new DCU series]] that, with UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode having lost any meaningful power, was even {{Darker|AndEdgier}} and [[BloodierAndGorier Gorier]] than before, and eventually came full circle, returning to the pages of ''All-Star Western'' in the ComicBook/{{New 52}} as the main character.

He had a few miniseries in Creator/VertigoComics with a supernatural bent, went on to a new DCU series that, with UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode having lost any meaningful power, was even {{Darker|AndEdgier}} and [[BloodierAndGorier Gorier]] than before, and eventually came full circle, returning to the pages of ''All-Star Western'' in the ComicBook/{{New 52}} as the main character.

* InTheBlood: One of the members of The Religion Of Crime is an ancestor of Catwoman. Fittingly, she has the title of "Lord of Theft".

** Jonah ''really'' doesn't like Bat Lash, a frequent teammate, to the point when saving a drowning man and finding it to be Lash, [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments he threw him back in the river.]] However, this is mostly one-sided - Lash often finds Hex annoying, but regards himself as in Hex's debt due to the number of times he's saved Lash's life.

Created in the [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks 1970s "Weird" phase]] in comics, Jonah Hex was created as a deliberate subversion of every Western hero cliche you can think. He then ended up being the last headline character of the genre in the comic book medium. He first appeared in ''"All-Star Western''" vol. 2 #10 (February-March, 1972), created by John Albano and Tony [=DeZuniga=] . The title was soon taken over by Michael Fleischer and renamed ''"Weird Western Tales''", with Jonah remaining its star to 1977. He was then moved to his own series, which lasted from 1977 to 1985. When his original series ended, Jonah was thrown into a post-Apocalyptic future à la Film/MadMax in a title called simply ''Hex'', lasting another two years. Fleischer's run of more than a dozen years is one of [[PrintLongRunners DC's longest for a character under a single writer]].

* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Jonah becomes this after being tossed through time to present-day Gotham City in the New 52 ''All Star Western''. He also spends some time in Metropolis.

* LineOfSightAlias: In ''All Star Western'' #34, Jonah needs an alias when signing a hotel register. He sees a sack of George Brand Flour being wheeled past in a wheelbarrow, and signs the book 'George Barrow'.