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TV & Film

The Hex Files

by DAVID HOFSTEDE

Given the current Hollywood obsession with movies based on comic book characters (Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman) it was only a matter of time before some of the classic comic book cowboys also found their way to a theater near you. And it is no surprise that from a diverse and colorful variety of Western characters that have entertained readers for decades, including Kid Colt, the Ringo Kid, and the original Ghost Rider, the first comic book cowboy to merit the big-screen treatment is Jonah Hex.

Modern westerns, much as we would prefer it to be otherwise, are hardly a guarantee of box office success. But with Jonah Hex, elements of science fiction and horror are mixed with traditional cowboy action, making the character an easier sell to teenage moviegoers. And while Kid Colt and the Two-Gun Kid haven’t been viable comic book characters since the days when fans bought their adventures off spinner racks at 7-Eleven, Jonah Hex remains a popular seller for DC Comics. The current series published its 50th issue in December 2009.

“Jonah Hex has a wonderful legacy behind him,” says Jimmy Palmiotti, the cowriter (with Justin Gray) on the current Hex comic series. “The character has been published by DC Comics since the 1970s, and it makes sense that people in Hollywood making films right now are in their 40s and younger, so they remember the character lovingly from their childhood. This simple fact helps put Jonah on their radar, as well as Justin and I reviving the ongoing comic book series for a new, younger audience.”

Even back in the ’70s, however, there was a contemporary appeal to the character, which helped the book stand apart from other western series. Many of the cowboys created by Marvel Comics and DC had their origins in the 1940s and ’50s, a time when good and evil were defined by who wore the white hat and the most popular movie cowboys included such wholesome stars as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

Jonah Hex came of age in a more cynical time, amid the popularity of spaghetti westerns with their amoral heroes and brutal violence. “Most of the other western characters...have the feel of a really dated approach to history and the importance of the cowboy in the Old West,” Palmiotti says. “Jonah Hex doesn’t have that one bit. The wild facial scar, the killer attitude, and the simple way he lives his life make for some interesting tales to be told.”

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A draft for a Jonah Hex comic book cover drawn by Tony DeZuniga

Created by writer John Albano and artist Tony DeZuniga, Jonah Hex debuted in DC’s All-Star Western Vol. 2 #10, cover date March 1972. The former Confederate soldier became a bounty hunter after the Civil War ended, the scars on his face a punishment from an Apache chief for killing the chief’s son. Multiple revamps later, the character has conjured a strong following and several attempts at a film, but fans first got light of a serious Jonah Hex project in 2007 when The Hollywood Reporter carried an item about a project in development with a script from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Jimmy Hayward was brought in to make his live-action directing debut, after helming the animated hit Horton Hears a Who!, and Josh Brolin, who recently established himself as a solid western lead in No Country for Old Men, was cast as the dark cowboy hellbent on avenging the innocent.

In an interview with MTV, Brolin said he was intrigued by “the absurdity of it all” when he took the role. “It almost allows you to create a new genre. I love going back into the spaghetti western idea and completely turning it around.” Brolin worked with three-time world championship gun spinner Joey Dillon to develop his quick-draw and tomahawk-handling skills—necessities for a cowboy fighting the unusual enemies that Hex faces.

Batman has his Joker, Superman his Lex Luthor, and for Jonah Hex, the role of arch-villain is filled by Quentin Turnbull, who served in Hex’s regiment and blames Hex for the death of his son, surrendering to the Union Army, and betraying his unit’s position. It was Brolin’s idea to approach veteran actor John Malkovich to play Turnbull. “I love Josh Brolin—he’s a friend of mine, and he said, ‘Would you be interested?’ And I like the guy, Jimmy Hayward, who’s directing him, so I said, ‘Sure.’...It was fun,” Malkovich told Empire Online.

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Comib book artist Jimmy Palmiotti visualizes another adventure in the Jonah Hex series.

Occasionally, the Hex comic veered into supernatural territory, when the bounty hunter turned his six-shooter on zombies and vampires. It was a fitting challenge for a character depicted as having one foot in the grave and one foot on earth. However, the film’s director, Hayward, promises no scary monsters in the movie. Instead, the film features current Hollywood “It” girl Megan Fox, which is more than a fair trade. Photos of Brolin in the Hex makeup were kept under wraps during production, but images of Fox in a saloon girl costume appeared on pop culture websites in April of 2009. She became the face of the film last summer, though she originally worked just five days on the project.

Jonah Hex needed a setting that was historical, bizarre, and seeping with mysticism, so New Orleans was the obvious choice. Filming took place at Louisiana’s historic Fort Pike for two months. Afterward, the film’s production team helped the Fort Pike museum with its post-Hurricane Katrina repairs by donating some of the set props and painting the interior, the sally port, and the citadel.

“Andy Lazar, [one of] the producer[s], and Jimmy Hayward had both approached Justin and me about reading the script, asked our opinion, and even invited us to the set in New Orleans to meet the cast and crew, and for us, it was just amazing to see the characters and background of our book come to life,” Palmiotti recalls. “We are extremely excited with what we saw while we were down there.”

The writer was also impressed by the casting choices, particularly Brolin as Hex. “Josh looks just amazing in the makeup, and I don’t think it was possible to cast the part any better than they did. He is just perfection in my eyes. He read the comics and he gets the attitude, dead-on. His enthusiasm for the project was contagious.

“We had lunch with John Malkovich and the cast, and he has a wicked sense of humor, is smart as a whip, knows about comics, and as the bad guy in the film is just amazing,” Palmiotti says. “We were humbled by the amount of talent around us.”

Originally intended as an R-rated release, the movie was cut to accommodate a PG-13 rating, but Palmiotti, who was raised on westerns and describes Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales as “my Star Wars,” believes that fans will not be disappointed in the action or violence, which is true to the harsher elements of the character’s history. “Once you see the trailer, you will get it instantly. It’s a heavy metal, balls-to-the-wall western. A summer blockbuster set in the West,” Palmiotti raves. “I think it’s aggressive and dead-on and a franchise film if I ever saw one. It’s going to do well because it’s hitting all the right points that moviegoers love.”

But however well Jonah Hex translates to the big screen, regardless of whether the film becomes an Iron Man-level hit or a Catwoman-level flop, the character will keep on riding through countless more grim adventures in the comics.

“After the film hits, it’s back to business as usual for us,” Palmiotti says. “We just hope the release helps get some new people interested in the books.”

Who’s Next?

Back in 2005, we discussed the possibilities of a wave of comic book cowboy films, following the box office success of the Spider-Man, X-Men, and Blade franchises. It took five years for the first of these proposed projects to materialize, but if there’s an enthusiastic response to Jonah Hex, perhaps we’ll also see one of these characters ride off the pages of a comic book.

|The Rawhide Kid | Next to Jonah Hex, the Rawhide Kid stories might be perceived as the most marketable to adapt, since the character’s origin reads like a western take on Batman. After his parents are killed, young Johnny Bart is adopted by a Texas Ranger who also suffers a tragic fate, but not before teaching Johnny about the code of the Rangers—and turning the young man into an expert marksman.

|Tomahawk | Part western, part Revolutionary War story, Tomahawk follows the adventures of Tom Hawk, a Massachusetts colonist rescued by Native Americans after a battle. Hawk becomes a member of their tribe and later serves as a middleman between the Indians and the early Americans.

| Kid Colt | A pacifist with a hair-trigger temper, Blaine Colt is also a crack shot who stays away from guns because he knows he’ll kill the first man who looks at him cross-eyed. With the aid of time travel, Kid Colt even makes his way to the future to aid The Avengers and The Fantastic Four.

| Cinnamon | A gorgeous redheaded female gunslinger? How has Cinnamon not been turned into a movie already? Perhaps because film adaptations of female comic book characters have not exactly pulled Avatar-level grosses. Catwoman and Elektra were disasters, and several writers have tried to find a fresh take on a Wonder Woman film, thus far without success. But Cinnamon doesn’t have a complicated back story, so a good western writer could take the character anywhere without worrying about angering a large existing fan base.

| The Two-Gun Kid | Matt Hawk is a Boston lawyer who gets a quick lesson in frontier justice after moving West and later learns the cowboy way from legendary gunfighter Ben Dancer. He assumes the identity of the Two-Gun Kid and partners up with “Boom Boom” Brown to fight criminals and supervillains.

Issue: June 2010