All-Star Western #16 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray (story), Moritat (art), Mike Atiyeh (colors)

The Story: Hex is nonplussed to learn that he makes the perfect Byronic hero.

The Review: You can find a lot of derogatory things to say about Jonah Hex, but one thing you’ll never think to call him is a quitter.  In fact, we’ve seen plenty of instances where Hex prevails over a much smarter, bigger, better opponent just by virtue of never taking it lying down.  We’ve seen him in several crises that would be the death of any other men, yet he’s always managed to see them through.  So what does it take to send Hex to the brink of despair?

The answer, apparently, is stagnation.  Hex made his distaste for the city pretty obvious even from the title’s first issue, and his irritation can only get worse taking lodging in giant, empty house populated by the infirm and the mad.  His only companion in the city is an uptight pansy of a man and even he’s been institutionalized.  Now, with no horse, indeed, with not even two good legs to stand on, rather yet ride with, I suppose even Hex has cause for depression.

All-Star Western #15 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Moritat (art), Mike Atiyeh (colors)

The Story: For once, Arkham tops Hex in the senseless violence department.

The Review: I don’t know how to say this without sounding a bit mean, but I always felt this title had an inevitable expiration date.  In the last year, All-Star Western hasn’t exactly made any breakthroughs with Gray-Palmiotti’s in-your-face style of writing.  Instead, it’s gotten by on sheer novelty alone for most of its run.  At some point, however, their plot would lose that veneer of originality, exposing the inherent flaws of the series.

I think we’ve reached that point in this issue.  The introduction of Hyde and the use of the Black Diamond initially promised interesting things for this arc, but here we realize that, as written, Hyde is just a well-spoken bruiser, and while the Black Diamond may be a necessary in the context of the story, it adds nothing special or new to the plot Gray-Palmiotti have chosen.

All-Star Western #14 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray (story), Moritat (art), Mike Atiyeh (colors)

The Story: Not even Asian exceptionalism stands a chance in Gotham.

The Review: One of the more unfortunate side-effects of growing up is having all your favorite historical myths stripped away.  I would’ve been happy to spend the rest of my life believing that the proto-Americans and Indians spent at least the early parts of their relationship in some kind of harmony.  The truth, of course, involved a great deal more violence and a whole lot less comfort food.

Although the Indians proved to be hospitable at the beginning, one of them made the covetous mistake of stealing a small silver cup from Richard Grenville’s first group of British settlers.  Grenville, perhaps feeling he ought to set boundaries straight from the beginning, responded by sacking and burning the whole Indian village.  And as any history book will tell you, life between the red and white people plunged sharply downhill from there.

All-Star Western #13 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Moritat (art), Mike Atiyeh (colors)

The Story: Can we all just agree that it’s all clowns that creep you out, not just the one?

The Review: Pre-relaunch, Gray-Palmiotti wrote Jonah Hex solo for a long—surprisingly long—time, and they seemed to find plenty of success that way.  For Hex in the Wild West, cooperation wouldn’t seem natural or necessary anyway.  But in his urban environment, Hex could use the help.  Without Arkham’s intercession, he’d probably just get arrested and executed in a few months; without Tallulah’s randiness, he’d probably go crazy from the city life.

All this is to say I’m glad Arkham and Tallulah are officially part of Hex’s trio for the foreseeable future.  Although none of them would probably call it as such, they’ve developed a very functional teamwork.  Probably no one can cover Hex in a scrap as well as Talulah, and when it comes to tending to the innocent harmed, or offering some intellectual insight into the happenings, or fending off law enforcement (“I’ll explain to the authorities as best I can,” he sighs resignedly over a bloody mess at a circus), Arkham’s the man.

The War that Time Forgot #1 – Review

By Bruce Jones (writer) Al Barrionuevo (pencils) and Jimmy Palmiotti (inks), Mike Atiyeh (colors)

So, I’m strolling through a comic shop Wednesday and what do I see? It’s a brand new comic book sporting a Neal Adams cover with Enemy Ace and Tomahawk on the cover. Needless to say, I was pumped up for this one. The premise of The War that Time Forgot is that several characters from DC’s war genre are all stuck on Dinosaur Island. While it is a good first issue that introduces the reader to some of the more obscure DC characters, the plot is nowhere to be seen.

Bruce Jones, to his credit, writes a lot of good action scenes – particularly the opening dogfight scene between the main character, Lt. Jones, and a Japanese Zero. Jones definitely did his homework as he is meticulous about all things pertaining to military strategy, vehicles, and equipment. Personally, I don’t have an extensive knowledge of the characters of DC’s war genre, however, Jones does a good job of introducing the characters by not assuming too much of the reader.

I like Al Barrionueveo’s style of art. Recently, it seems that artists draw action scenes from a closer perspective as if to make the reader more involved in the action. Barrionueveo does the opposite, pulling the camera back, which in my opinion creates more clarity to the action. Again, the best scene has to be the opening dogfight scene. The attention to detail, along with some great colors by Mike Atiyeh made the comic for me.

However, introduction of characters and action sequences is all that happens. There is no mention of any type of protagonist except for the clearly obvious dinosaurs running rampant and some vague mention to “other” people on the island. Also, I had just one blaring problem with the dialogue. At one point, Private “Jarhead” Jones traps a Rhinoceros-like creature then continues to blow it up with a hand grenade to stack the meat. When asked why he didn’t use the grenade before, he responds, “We have a limited supply of grenades.” What?!

Arguing over distribution and use of hand grenades aside, The War that Time Forgot is your standard first issue: Action scene, new character, action, new character, rinse, repeat. Hopefully, in the next issue, Jones can show us some reason behind the assembly of these characters and some sort of plot. (Grade: C-)

– Robert Hyland