As we are all aware, the current trend in Hollywood is to scoop up and option nearly every comic book property or graphic novel possible and turn it into a movie or television show. Of course, this has been met with varying amounts of success. For every The Dark Knight and American Splendor, we get five Constantine's and Fantastic Four's. This new feature at CraveOnline has a lofty goal; we hope to educate those without previous knowledge of a comic property to become familiar with franchises that have recently been picked up for a film or television series. In doing so, hopefully we can train the untrained eyes to spot weaknesses in a film's development so that some day, Hollywood bigwigs will have no choice but to produce faithful and quality works based on our favorite sequential art.

To kick things off with a bang, we're taking a look at Jonah Hex, which is set for release in 2010 starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich and Will Arnett. I commend DC/Warner Brothers for taking their time with their films, and even more so for following up the success of The Dark Knight with a significantly lesser known hero like Jonah Hex. So put on your cowboy hats, because you're about to go to Jonah Hex 101.

The Origin:  Jonah Hex is a facially scared bounty hunter in the Old West, and former officer of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Debuting in All-Star Western #10 for DC Comics, Jonah was the major character for the book, which changed its name to Weird Western Tales for many issues, until landing his own series in 1977. Over the years, Jonah's origin has been more fleshed out and encompasses the young Jonah being sold into slavery by his father to the Apaches, the chief of whom Jonah saved from a mountain lion, and was taken under the chief's wing. Later, in a battle with the chief's real son, Jonah drew his knife and disgraced the Apache rules of sacred battle, prompting the tribe to "mark" Jonah, pressing a scalding tomahawk on his face.


The Cast: Jonah Hex is unique to the DC Universe in that he doesn't really have much in the way of a regular supporting cast. Being a drifter/bounty hunter, the scenery often changes and most characters are revolving. For the purposes of the Hex film, it doesn't seem as though it will be an origin story, so really, the characters of the Apache tribe are relatively irrelevant to know going into the cinema. However, one character that does appear in the film is the closest thing that Jonah has to an archenemy: Quentin Turnbull, played bye John Malkovich.

Though he seems to differ in the film from his origins on paper, Turnbull was Jonah's best friend's father. Jeb Turnbull served with Jonah in the Confederacy and when Jonah was captured by the Union, he refused to give away the location of his fellow soldiers. When the Union discovered them, they were all slaughtered - including Jeb Turnbull - and Jonah was framed for their deaths. Of course, this led Quentin Turnbull to swear vengeance on Jonah for his son's untimely death. In the film, the screenwriters have turned Turnbull into some sort of voodoo practitionre, hellbent on raising an army of the dead. While I personally could stand for a little less sci-fi and a little more swashbuckling, I'm going to hope for the best.

Aside from Turnbull, there are no other major characters in the film that appear in the comics. Though there is presumably a love interest in Megan Fox, Jonah's comic book wife was a woman named Mei Ling.
 
The Major Plotlines: Up until Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti's recent stories in the current Jonah Hex ongoing series, most of his story arcs were rather short. The original Jonah Hex ongoing last 92 issues, featuring most of the establishing factors of Jonah's history and origin. This title was canceled in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but relaunched as Hex, an enormous upheaval of the traditional Jonah Hex, sending him into the 21st century and establishing him as a hero of the post-apocolypse age.

In the timeline of Jonah Hex himself, the adventures in the future happened before around 1904, when, according to the Jonah Hex Spectacular, he is gunned down while playing a game of cards in a local saloon.

In the 1990's Jonah found his way into DC's Vertigo imprint, where he was given three mini-series that seem to be more the inspiration for the film than the central DCU stuff. At Vertigo, the books were given much more of a horror slant. In the Vertigo mini-series Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo, written by Joe R. Lansdale and illustrated by Tim Truman, the duo introduced Jonah to the zombie, which seems to be an important part of the upcoming film.

The new ongoing series in the DCU proper begain in 2005, with Gray and Palmiotti giving readers stories that cover the whole span of Hex's lifetime.


Recommended Reading:

Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo #1-5
Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence, Collecting Jonah Hex vol. 2 #1-6
Secret Origins vol. 3 #21
Jonah Hex Spectacular #1
Weird Western Tales #29
Jonah Hex vol. 1 #35