All Star Western #8

Punch her in the pussy!

Last issue, I was just going along with whatever the story was telling me even though I didn't quite understand why events were transpiring the way they were. Hex was forced to help Cinnamon and Nighthawk find the guy blowing up buildings but how that immediately led Hex to try to get in the Arena and then accidentally hook up with the guy behind it all (probably), I don't know. Is this all a great big coincidence? And why is Hex suddenly going to fight Z.C. who is friends with Mr. Coy, the man Hex has struck up a friendship based on a shared sense of racism? And was I calling Nighthawk "Knighthawk" all last issue? I really wasn't paying much attention!

While Cinnamon and Nighthawk patrol the city and Hex fights to the death against a sexy woman, Arkham has found other diversions to occupy him.

What the hell does an Arkham hallucinate?

Since Arkham is narrating the story, I would expect it to get sort of loose and wacky and full of opiate delirium. But I think it's going to remain in his normal, non-intoxicated voice. Arkham reminds me that the group Hex and his cohorts are trying to find call themselves the August 7. They like blowing up businesses that use immigrant labour. Maybe that's why Hex went to the Arena. It's probably well known that they have a white woman killing immigrants in battles to the death. But that would be tough to find the guy behind it all amidst an entire stadium full of racist assholes! What if they're all in it like the Crime Bible Society of Gotham! Now Hex will have to take on all of New Orleans!

Gratuitous shot of Arkham enjoying himself.

Like most months in-between issues, a fight breaks out. Most of the fight takes place while the reader is away. Normally I don't mind. Go ahead and skip the first big action scene between Batman and Superman in The New 52. Nobody's going to feel cheated! But you know what? I feel cheated here. I really wanted to see Hex get his ass kicked by this bird:

I hate when people ask two part questions like this. I always just answer the first part and ignore the rest.

They do continue the fight for a bit in this comic. Here are the highlights:

You didn't think I was showing you all the tits and ass shots because I was a pervert, did you?! It's because that wasn't a fight! It was foreplay!

The fight pleases more people than just the combatants. Mr. Coy bids on Jonah Hex by flashing a Seven of Diamonds. Is he the 7th in the August 7? The bidding might be a way for the August 7 to collect henchman and bodyguards.

Meanwhile in the Opiate Den, a raid is commencing!

Arkham pleads research! Is it legal for doctors to take illegal substances for research purposes?! Why didn't anybody tell me! I would have went to medical school!

Amadeus is thrown in the clink despite his protestations that the pipe in his mouth was for research purposes and his dick in the Chinese girl was a diplomatic summit.

Jonah Hex receives an offer from Hiram Coy to join the August 7 but first he needs to prove he can be trusted by sinking a steamship full of people before it leaves port in the morning. If he doesn't do it, he'll never know who the other four of the seven are (currently he knows, Coy, the woman with Coy, Lenore Robin, and the battle babe, Z.C. Branke). Hex is going to go through with it but Cinnamon and Nighthawk won't let him. Until he steals Nighthawk's necklace and threatens to shoot them both in the head. He then storms out telling them to find Arkham. Hex probably has a plan that doesn't quite involve killing hundreds of innocent people. But then again, you never know. He's got a job to do and he's going to do it, by gum!

Meanwhile, Arkham is busy psychoanalyzing inmates in the jail. Captain Eider lets him out saying he put a call in to Gotham and they corroborated his story that he was in town with a bounty hunter searching for a felon. But when Arkham mentions the bounty hunter's name and describes the scars all over his face, Captain Eider draws his gun. It looks like Arkham found the fourth of the August 7! Good job! Kind of. Except I think y'all need a new plan now.

One of the 7 is a sailor scout!

Arkham and Hex are tied up and rowed out to the ship that the August 7 are going to sink. Looks like next issue is going to be a short one.

The back-up story continues with Nighthawk and Cinnamon trapped in a mine with a single lantern. This time, Cinnamon tells her story. While she tells it, they wander around the mine until they find a crack in the rocks. It leads to a tomb where two ancient corpses lie, each with a golden necklace. Nighthawk and Cinnamon rob the grave, wear the necklaces, and escape. They notice Robertson and his men headed toward New Orleans. So that's where they're headed since Robertson killed Cinnamon's dad and maybe he did something to Nighthawk as well.

All Star Western #8 Rating: No change. Still nothing special, either in a good or a bad way.

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.