All Star Western #2

Yay! Evil Cows!

Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham have retreated the Arkham Manor after causing a stir among the members of the Secret Society for the Betterment of Gotham by Killing Whores. Jonah readies his rifle, sure that they are going to be pursued, while Arkham delves into research.

How many long standing dark secret societies are there in Gotham?

A couple dozen men with guns in their hands and burlap sacks on their heads begin to close in around Arkham Manor. It doesn't take very long for each and every one of them to learn a hard lesson. It's always a hard lesson to be learned in the Old West.

I think these guys were the cows from the cover!

One man survives the assault. Would that be surprising that one man survived? Or surprising that only one man survived? If Jonah Hex is such a good shot that he cleanly killed every other man, then I would suspect he gut shot just this one man on purpose for the sake of getting answers. That's a pretty efficient killer!

And they get a lot of information! The stupid secret society sent a bunch of lackeys to kill Hex and Arkham so that the secret society could stay secret. But the plan backfired like plans have a way of doing and now Hex and Arkham know everything! The Skull Ring Society follow something called The Crime Bible and they want Gotham City to be their Vatican. They're killing women as sacrifices to consecrate their unholy grounds. Or something like that. The dying man wasn't exactly super clear with all of the details. Arkham wants to go to the police. But Hex just wants to go kill them all. Guess which way they're going to go?!

This is why Hex didn't want to go to the police.

The Followers of Cain, as they call themselves, threw the party in an attempt to get Officer Cromwell to join their midst. But he chose poorly and is about to be made an example of unless Jonah Hex comes barging through the sitting room window on the next page.

Except Jonah Hex has a little restraint and just waits to follow everyone as they leave the Followers of Cain Headquarters. Probably Arkham's influence. The two follow the carriage with Cromwell in it to the Blacksmith's where they walk in on the blacksmith torturing Cromwell and carving arcane symbols and sayings into his chest.

Okay, maybe just sayings. I thought the hair in his armpits was a symbol.

But the rescue mission quickly goes tits up when a gigantic hulkish brute of a Sloth like-a-look sucker punches Jonah from the back and quickly gets the upper hand.

This reminds me of a Boot Hill campaign I was once a part of. Boot Hill was a wild west role playing game where we, the players, always had dreams of being that guy who can do what Jonah Hex did earlier in this comic. Gun down a dozen men with ease and walk off into the sunset. But after losing character after character to one stray bullet, you learn to be careful. We had a friend, Soy Rakelson (I mentioned him before! And his name is still changed to protect his innocence!), who Game Mastered one of our Boot Hill campaigns. He had an idea for a campaign although he wasn't terrifically well versed in the rules of the system. So at one point, we encounter two huge hulking brutes like the guy Jonah just met. And Soy is just foaming at the lips about how hard we're going to get our asses beat by these guys! And then Bam! Bam! Two bullets and two dead hulks. And then he did that flabbergasted look that only Soy Rakelson could do so well every single night. Why was he always being surprised by things?!

So that's where this issue's Jonah Hex story ends. The back-up story is part one of an El Diablo zombie tale. It's interesting enough although at this point, I'd rather just have four more pages of Jonah Hex!