DC Comics; $3.99

In the “All good things must come to an end” department, this is the last issue of All Star Western.

Several times in the past we have commented the long run that writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have had with the character Jonah Hex (Jonah Hex ran 70 issues; add in the original graphic novel and this series and you’ve got 105 original stories). Month in and month out for a large chunk of the last decade, they have consistently displayed a drive for innovation and a willingness to try new things or even old things to make great stories.

They’ve also recruited a lot of very good artists to help them along the way. That remains true for the this final issue, for which Darywn Cooke handles the art duties. The work displays Cooke’s usual dexterity in matching up stories told on a big stage with the subtleties of personal interaction.

In All Star Western #34, they play against type by giving Hex that thing he’s never had before, an upbeat ending. Yeah, it’s a bit ambigious — this is still Jonah Hex after all — but they made it work without violating the character’s history or the tone they’d built up over the years.

It was as kind a notion as we’ve seen toward a characer that is rarely associated with kindness. Whether in the form of longer story arcs or in one-and-done individual issues (which they practically had to remind us were still possible), these two writers showed us they clearly love and understand Jonah Hex.

We thank them for leaving so much of that love on the page for so many issues.