WESTERN

Westerns were once a huge subgenre in comics, and with Loveless and Jonah Hex back on the shelves there’s a bit of a resurgence in sequential stories of cowboy folk. Making his first appearance in 1971, Hex is basically a disfigured take on Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, a bitter, stone cold bounty hunter delivering his own brand of frontier justice. The book offers up grizzled tales of vengeance as Hex dispenses his violent retribution on carnie folk, swamp dwelling rednecks and various other colourful nerdowells across these six self-contained stories.

The tone is nicely set in Dead Wood territory but never reaches the heights of the Spaghetti Westerns that so obviously inspired this current run. Palmiotti and Grey provide the writing and a different artist each issue keeps things interesting but the quality varies wildly.

(Henry Northmore)