Jonah Hex #33

One-sentence summary: Cooke illustrates a beautifully simple tale showing Hex to be the true anti-hero that he is.

I, as a general rule, like the latest volume of Jonah Hex. Occasionally there'll be an issue I'm not a huge fan of, but this was not the case with 33. Now, am I completely biased because I'm a Cooke fanboy? Almost certainly. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating the harsh story, narrated in an appropriately dated style.

I think one-shots are risky things. Sometimes they (probably rightfully so) feel like filler, just the stuff that takes place between story arcs and won't find collection in a trade. Other one-shots are just meaningless fun, or maybe they'll feature some big-name guest artist or writer. Others will be an issue-long illustration of a character, reminding the reader of who they are. This issue's a mix: it's a guest artist (Cooke), but it's definitely a quality character study. Despite being a fan of the series, the climatic panel of this comic was a surprise, one which initially surprised me, but as it settled in I was immensely satisfied with the story.

So, did it help this issue was illustrated by Cooke? Of course -- but it could've been illustrated by just about anyone and I'd still have liked it. As is, I loved it.

Countdown #38

One-sentence summary: Quite a bit more action in this issue, a little bit of plot development, and (hurray) absolutely nothing about Amazons Attack.

Honestly, this was one of the best issues of Countdown yet. If I were to make a single complaint with it, I'd say that there wasn't a ton of plot to it, just scenes and action, but it still had more plot than the usual issue of Countdown. I really liked this issue; maybe it was just me, but the artwork even seemed to be a bit better.

First off, all the action with Zatanna and Mary Marvel was interesting and definitely was a cool way to show Zatanna how Mary's changed, as well as developing the Apokolips plot some (I had just been reading the Forever People, so seeing an Omega or Alpha bullet, whatever it was called, was cool). While it would be a disappointing end if that's all they did with the Question and Batwoman, the scene with them and Piper/Trickster was absolutely fantastic. The puppets, man, the puppets! The Karate Kid development was, at least for me, a bit surprising. Maybe I should've seen this coming, but I didn't.

Nothing really happened with Jimmy Olsen, despite the fact that he was on the cover of the issue. He got rejected from Titans, that was all. Woo. While I do like the cover, I think a better one probably would've been Trickster doing a puppet show for an irritated Question and Batwoman, but, hey, that's just my two cents.

No Amazons Attack plot! Woo! I hate that plot so much.

Also, however, no Ray Palmer plot. I guess this might be because The All-New Atom #14 had a fair amount of development on this storyline, so they figured people got their Atom fix last week, they can take a break on that. I accept this, particularly since they write Ryan Choi so poorly.

Good issue, all in all. They moved things along at a decent pace, that damnable "History of the Multiverse" section is finally over, and they had a good mix of action and comedy in it. For this, I'm pretty satisfied.

Jonah Hex #22

One-sentence summary: While usually a good title, I felt this issue of Jonah Hex was a bit off of the latest run, steering away from the gritty realism of the last several issues and going with a steampunk adventure starring Edison and Tesla from the sidelines.

I've been liking Jonah Hex, but part of the reason I've been liking it is because, as a friend put it, it's a Clint Eastwood movie put into comic form. Clint Eastwood movies do not revolve around automatons/robots (two very different things usually considered the same in any steampunk story).

I guess that's my real grief with this. It was just such a departure from the Jonah Hex that I've gotten used to, now I don't know if I should expect renegade cowboys or time travelers in the next issue. Hopefully the former. As its own story, it's not horrible. It exaggerates, obviously, the feud between Edison and Tesla, but I can deal with that. I didn't think it was as high of quality of story as you normally find with Jonah Hex, though. The art was still great, though, and the cover is pretty fantastic, even if I didn't like the subject matter of the story.