All Star Western #7

$0.50 Shave. $1 Haircut. $5 Bath. $20 Suck and Fuck. $50 Fight to the Death.

Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham have traveled to New Orleans chasing after Thurston Moody, the man behind the child slave ring used to build the Gotham sewers. Who else was Moody supposed to get to build the sewers? Some of those passages are pretty small. I guess the trouble he brought on himself was forcing the kids to work without pay. If he'd just given each one a nickel a day, he probably wouldn't have been breaking any laws.

This is Jonah and his horse and Amadeus and his horse arriving in New Orleans.
This is the boring caption to the picture of Jonah and his horse and Amadeus and his horse arriving in New Orleans.

As soon as Hex and Arkham and their horses step off the steam ship, a building explodes! Hex is a great big schleprock! Jonah Hex runs into the flaming rubble to rescue a bunch of women and children.

When Hex emerges, he's greeted by a young Stan Lee. 'nuff said, bitches!

Hex collapses and isn't breathing. Luckily Knighthawk and Cinnamon, in their non-stripper guises of Hannibal and Kate, are there to meet up with Hex. Hannibal puts a necklace around Hex's neck to save his life. That doesn't seem normal. The necklace gives the wearer extra strength and speed and, I guess, keeps him from dying. Knighthawk and Cinnamon both wear one and have become Wild West Super Heroes! But they still need Hex's help to find the person blowing up buildings in town. It takes some convincing to get Hex to help out.

Arkham doesn't need convincing because he's a pansy who wants to help da widdle chiddrens.

Hex ends up investigating an arena in town where they hold gladiator style fights to the death. He meets a man who can't stop talking about the invasion of foreign types into his southern homeland, stealing jobs and committing crimes. Jonah pretends to agree (or really does agree. But probably just doesn't give a shit one way or the other, actually) while they watch a waif of a girl take down a gigantic Roman foreigner.

I want to know what she calls that move in the upper right panel.

As you would expect, Jonah gets his chance in the Arena. Acting as if he's in need of money, the man he's with, Mr. Coy, suggests that Hex try his chance in the arena. Hex confirms that it isn't always to the death and he agrees. It's not that Hex is afraid of being killed! He probably just doesn't want to kill someone who's just trying to make a buck himself. By, you know, killing other guys trying to make some bucks.

Jonah defeats his opponent fairly quickly and then the girl, Z.C., challenges Jonah.

This issue didn't take much time to read at all. Between Hex fire fighting and then fighting with Knighthawk and then watching Z.C. fight and then fighting his own fight, it's mostly just a bunch of punches getting thrown. Hex hasn't even had time to investigate Thurston Moody because Knighthawk and Cinnamon keep beating him up whenever he tries to go do his own thing. So he's stuck in this storyline until its end, I guess. Hopefully that will be next issue.

The back-up story is about Knighthawk and Cinnamon. It sheds light on Knighthawk's early years. Same old, same old. While he's busy littering the panels with Narration Boxing, Knighthawk and Cinnamon are beaten down by the Robertson Gang. Then they're carted off and thrown in a mine to be dynamited in. During the next half of the story next issue, I imagine we'll get Cinnamon's background. And it won't be exciting enough to mention either!

All Star Western #7 Rating: No change. Lots and lots and lots of action this month but little else.