The Good
Jonah Hex and Booster Gold make their escape, but end up separated through time and space. Jonah Hex ends up in the future Gotham City where he meets up with its protector: Batwing.
JONAH HEX has quickly become one of my favorite books. This book is a ton of fun, and you don't have to be a fan of the western genre to enjoy it. The Booster Gold/Jonah Hex team up reminds me of a great buddy cop movie. There's a lot of great action sequences, and the first few pages of this book really kept me on the edge of my seat.
"What about the cover? We see Batwing fighting Jonah Hex? WTF!?" What really made Jonah Hex's trip to the future work was the fact Booster Gold has been in the past few issues. It's such a smooth and brilliant transition. ALL STAR WESTERN has been a pretty serious book, and the inclusion of Booster helped lighten the tone for a couple issues, which made Jonah going into the future feel right.
As for the future that writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have created, it's pretty awesome. When I say "future," I mean the future for Jonah. From what it seems, Jonah is in our present day. I'm not entirely sure if it is a splintered timeline or actually the New 52 timeline where the rest of the books take place (I hope it's the current timeline), but there's a few things I loved about Moritat's (artist) and Mike Atiyeh's (colors) work in these scenes. The color, mainly neon, pops. It's great in contrast to the world we've seen Jonah in for the past couple of years. It's startling to your eyes right away.
The second thing I loved about this Gotham City was the return of The Mutants from DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. There's actually a couple DKR references here, including what one of the Mutants is wearing. I hope we get to see more of the mutant gang make their way into DC books.
This issue leaves us off somewhere awesome, and that final cliffhanger page is beautiful. Some great work from Moritat there. I love the way he uses inks for shading here, and where Gray and Palmiotti leave us off has me really excited for the next issue of this series.
The Bad
Again, I'm not too interested in the Stormwatch backups. I'm not big into vampires. It's well written and well drawn, but it's not my cup of tea.
The Verdict
ALL STAR WESTERN may have taken a jump into the world of science fiction here, but it works so well. This has quickly become one of my favorite DC on-going books. I love how this book is throwing some other DC notables in the mix, but it never feels forced. The art in this issue is great. I only want to see Moritat draw Hex now. That style truly fits this western hero. While the Batwing/Hex fight was pretty cool, where this issue leaves off got me super excited. Go out and treat yourself to some Jonah Hex... You deserve it.
Overall, I highly recommend this issue.