COVER STORY: Hex #18

What makes the best comic book covers? It is a great topic for debate. For us, as individuals, there is no wrong answer, of course; it is purely subjective. But, with a little thought it’s possible to explain what it is about a particular image that grabs you. The best images are the ones that make you stop and check out something you weren’t previously planning to purchase – and in some cases, you even end up picking up a title you’ve never even heard of before.

It was 1986 and it seemed like such a good idea at the time. I mean, cash in on the popularity of Mel Gibson’s Mad Max movies by bringing Jonah Hex, the popular DC Comics bounty hunter with a confederate uniform and a deadeye shot, to the far flung future. And, to have it written by Michael Fleisher – the man who long chronicled the adventures of the Western antihero and saw that he lived on in immortality as a stuffed sideshow exhibit. Add superstar artist Keith Giffen to the mix, and you should have a combustible mixture for success. Alas, Hex #18 was to be the last chapter of the bounty hunter’s future adventures and Fleisher’s final telling of the character’s weird western tales.

Labeling the fact that it was to be “The Last Hex Story” and “Destined to be a Classic!” on the front cover, Giffen’s farewell to the time-traveling gunslinger found him loading his gun with bullets as mutated would-be killers lie dead all around him. From his celebrated work on Marvel’s The Defenders and DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes, Giffen is known for his strong covers – and this landmark issue is no different.

Offering a look at what might have been, while foretelling to Hex his macabre destiny as a Western-themed pincushion, this book offers a lot for sci-fi and Western fans both. It is also a very affordable chapter in the saga of Jonah Hex, arguably DC’s most popular gunslinger – no matter what time period he is in. 

–Scott Braden