Jonah Hex (New Earth)

{{DC Database:Character Template
 * Image                  = Jonah Hex 0007.jpg
 * RealName               = Jonah Woodson Hex
 * CurrentAlias           = Jonah Hex
 * Aliases                = Hex
 * Identity               = Public
 * Alignment              = Neutral
 * Affiliation            = Rough Bunch; formerly Five Warriors from Forever, Black Lantern Corps
 * Relatives              = Jason Hex (son), Joshua Dazzleby (half-brother), Virginia Hex (mother), Woodson Hex (father), Mei Ling (ex-wife), Tall Bird (second wife), Mei Song (sister-in-law), Mei Wong (brother-in-law)
 * Universe               = Earth-One; New Earth
 * BaseOfOperations       =


 * Gender                 = Male
 * Height                 = 5'11"
 * Weight                 = 189 lbs
 * Eyes                   = Blue
 * Hair                   = Red
 * UnusualFeatures        = Facial scar


 * Citizenship            = American
 * MaritalStatus          = Divorced
 * Occupation             = Bounty Hunter; Mercenary; formerly Farmer, Soldier
 * Education              =


 * Origin                 =
 * PlaceOfBirth           =
 * PlaceOfDeath           = Cheyenne, Wyoming
 * Creators               = John Albano; Tony DeZuniga
 * First                  = All-Star Western Vol 2 #10


 * Quotation              =  I'm sending you to ta Hell with a message. When you meet the Devil... tell 'em Jonah Hex sends his regards.
 * Speaker                = Jonah Hex
 * QuoteSource            = Jonah Hex Vol 2 13


 * HistoryText            =

Origins
On November 1st, 1838, a man named Woodson Hex and his wife, Virginia "Ginny" Hex, gave birth to their only son – Jonah. Growing up in Woodson's small farmhouse was a tumultuous time for young Jonah. Woodson was known for his excessive drinking and his abusive nature, and often took his violent urges out upon Jonah and Ginny.

One such incident occurred when Jonah was only ten years old. His father had given him a rifle for his birthday, and Jonah hoped that relations might improve between the two, but that same evening, Jonah witnessed Woodson fly into a drunken rage and attack Ginny, whom he falsely believed had been cheating on him. Not long after, Ginny abandoned her husband and child and would not be reunited with Jonah again for many years.

By 1851, Woodson Hex decided to travel out to California in the hopes of mining for gold during the California gold rush. In his travels, he came across a tribe of Apache American Indians and entered into a dialogue with the Apache chief. He sold his thirteen-year-old son to the tribe in exchange for some fur pelts. The Apaches raised Jonah and educated him in the ways of their tribe. Through the chief, Jonah learned how to track and to hunt, as well as fighting and survival skills. Although he was favored by the chief, Jonah was a slave, and never succeeded in fitting in with his Apache brethren.

In 1853, a puma snuck into the camp and attacked the chief. Jonah drove the animal away, saving his life and thus earning the older man's gratitude. As such, the chief granted Jonah his freedom. Even though he now possessed the ability to come and go as he pleased, Jonah had grown accustomed to life among the American Indians, and preferred to stay in the Apache camp.

During this time, Jonah befriended the chief's son, Noh-Tante. Although they were as brothers to one another, they both pined for the affection of a woman named White Fawn. White Fawn clearly preferred Hex over Noh-Tante and the Apache's inherent jealousy soon grew into a deep-seated hatred.

In 1854, the Apache chief decided to test Noh-Tante and Jonah's worthiness as warriors. He instructed the two boys to sneak into a nearby camp and steal horses from a tribe of Kiowa Indians. Noh-Tante believed this would make an excellent opportunity to claim White Fawn for himself. During the raid, Noh-Tante attacked Jonah, knocking him unconscious. Satisfied that the Kiowa would finish him off, he brought the horses back to his father and told the Apaches that the Kiowa had killed Jonah during the raid.

While the Apaches believed Jonah dead, a group of bounty hunters conducted their own raid on the Kiowa camp. During the firefight, a stray bullet struck Jonah's body and he was left bleeding on the ground. Shortly thereafter, a trapper discovered Hex's limp form and nursed him back to health. Betrayed by his own family, Jonah swore to never return to the Apache camp. He relied upon their teachings in order to survive however, and eked out a meager existence as a buffalo hunter.

American Civil War
As Jonah grew into adulthood, he joined the United States Army as a cavalry scout. By 1861, the country was radically divided on issues of slavery and Southern rights. When war erupted between the Northern states and the South, Jonah shifted his loyalties to the newly formed Confederate army and enlisted as a lieutenant in the 4th cavalry. Ironically, Hex, a former slave, now found himself fighting to preserve the very institution that he had been a victim of. During this time, Jonah met a fellow soldier named Jeb Turnbull and the two became close friends.

In September of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation – a proposed bill that would outlaw slavery in all slave-holding states. Jonah began to realize that he could no longer support a system that elected to hold his fellow man in bondage. He abandoned his post and marched into the Union camp at Fort Charlotte to surrender. The camp's captain pressured Hex into revealing the location of his Confederate unit, but Jonah refused to yield the information. An orderly at Fort Charlotte examined samples of clay from the iron shoes on Hex's horse, and successfully determined where the Rebels were stationed.

The Union soldiers tracked the enemy back to their camp, and took them by surprise. As the Rebels were arrested, the Union captain publicly thanked Jonah for his assistance, marking him as a traitor in the eyes of his former unit. All of the soldiers were brought back to Fort Charlotte.

The Union camp did not possess enough food in order to adequately feed all of its prisoners, so the captain manipulated Hex into staging a breakout. Jonah found a shaft beneath his cell and used it to access the compound where Jeb Turnbull and the other prisoners were being held. He aided them in trying to escape, but the Union captain was prepared for them. In an event that history will know as the "Fort Charlotte Massacre", the Union soldiers shot down every escapee in cold blood, including Jeb Turnbull. Jonah found himself a victim of a Union bullet as well, but managed to survive long enough to kill the camp's captain. Following the Fort Charlotte Massacre, Jonah patched himself up and moved out towards the Western territories.

Mark of the Demon
Hex eventually returned to the Apache camp where he had lived, and discovered that his old rival, Noh-Tante, had since married White Fawn. The Apache chief was shocked to learn that Hex was still alive, and now doubted the honesty of his son's tale concerning the Kiowa raiding party. Jonah openly declared that Noh-Tante had betrayed him.

In order to determine the truth, the Apache chief orchestrated a trial-by-combat between Jonah and Noh-Tante. Noh-Tante feared that Jonah was a more capable fighter, and so he deliberately sabotaged the tomahawk that Jonah was to use during the fight. As the trial commenced, Jonah found himself losing to Noh-Tante's brutal attacks. Unable to rely upon his tomahawk, Jonah used his Bowie knife to bring Noh-Tante down, killing him in the process. By doing so, Jonah broke a sacred law which forbade the murder of an Apache. Jonah appealed to the chief, claiming that he was fighting in self-defense, but the chief would not listen to him. Several braves held Jonah down while the chief ordered him branded with the Mark of the Demon. Jonah's face was hideously burned and he was expelled from the Apache camp never to return.

Bounty Hunter
Jonah Hex was inspired to become a bounty hunter after murdering his first criminal, the outlaw "Mad Dog" Lucas McGill. He gunned down Mad Dog while the man was beating his wife outside of a saloon; in his inebriated stupor, Hex believe him to be his own father Woodson abusing his mother Ginny. The local deputy insisted that even drunk it was the fastest draw he'd ever seen, and gave him the massive bounty on McGill's head. Hex accepted the money and scattered it on the streets as he left town by horseback.



Guns and Gotham
Following a change to the Timestream as a result of the events of Flashpoint, history was changed. During the 1880s, Amadeus Arkham was recruited by Detective Lofton of the Gotham City Police Department to help solve the case of the Gotham Butcher. Police Chief John Cromwell didn't take kindly to Arkham's theories, nor to the eventual recruitment of bounty hunter Jonah Hex, who had recently caused a stir by coming to town.

Even so, recognizing Hex's street smarts, Arkham suggested that the two of them join forces in performing a separate investigation into the case. Together, they uncovered Gotham City's sect of the Religion of Crime, and its relation to the Butcher case.

Death
Jonah Hex continues to act as a bounty hunter until the age of 66 in 1904, where he is married to a Native American woman named Tall Bird. His life story is documented by Michael Wheeler. The entertainer L.B. Farnham approaches him to become part of a Wild West Revue show in his old age, but Hex angrily refuses to let them turn him into a sideshow. Hex's last bounty was a gang run by bank robber George Barrow; he succeeded in wiping them out, but Barrow returned for revenge several days later. Playing cards in a Cheyenne saloon, Hex was murdered with Barrow's double-barreled shotgun while fumbling to put on his spectacles. His death was immediately avenged by the lawman Hank Crawford who gunned down the unarmed Barrow in cold blood. In his dying moments, Hex hallucinates and reflects on the life that he's lived.

Tall Bird and Wheeler attempt to give Jonah a proper Native American burial, but they are robbed at gunpoint by Farnham and an accomplice. Farnham has Wheeler shot and the widow left unconscious to die in a house fire while he steals Hex's corpse for his Wild West Revue. Jonah Hex is taxidermized to be put on display permanently in a gaudy outfit, and the two evil men meet their ends but his body is transported from location to location. His final resting place is as a dummy at a Westworld theme park. Eventually he is discovered by historians, but Tall Bird is revealed to have survived the fire and she claims his body. She does an interview with a young scholar to fill in the missing details in her husband's life, but they are assaulted by a Western memorabilia collector who demands to have the corpse at any cost. The evil collector is shot in the back before he can murder them, and it is implied that Jonah Hex's vengeful spirit returned to protect his wife from beyond the grave.


 * Powers                 =


 * Abilities              =
 * Hunting: He is widely considered the greatest bounty hunter to ever live in his lifetime.
 * Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced): Trained by the Apaches in Hand-to-Hand Combat.
 * Tracking: Jonah Hex was an expert bounty hunter and skilled in the ways of tracking.
 * Survival: Jonah Hex was an expert bounty hunter and skilled in the ways of survival.
 * Firearms: Trained by the Confederate army in the use of firearms. During his tenure in the 21st century, Jonah Hex developed automotive skills and expertise in using futuristic weaponry.
 * Swordsmanship: Trained by the Apaches in the use of bows, tomahawks, and sabers.
 * Strength               = Hex is much stronger than the average man in his time, due to his fighting experience and harsh training that started as a child, and continued throughout adulthood.


 * Weaknesses             =


 * Equipment              =
 * Transportation         = Jonah once owned a horse named General. After General was killed by stray fire in Weird Western Tales (Volume 1) #22, Jonah made use of whatever horse was available to him at any given time.


 * Weapons                = Two ivory handled .44 caliber Colt dragoon pistols, one Bowie knife, lever action rifle, an 1860 Light cavalry sabre and other weapons germane to the 19th century American southwest. In the 21st century, Hex had access to a variety of futuristic firearms.


 * Notes                  =


 * Although Jonah turned against his Confederate allies during the Civil War, he continued to wear his uniform years after the war had ended.


 * As of 2007, Jonah Hex's origin has been re-imagined as shown in the "Retribution" storyline beginning in Jonah Hex (Volume 2) #13.


 * Trivia                 =
 * As legend has it, Jonah Hex is responsible for single-handedly killing a minumum of 336 people.
 * Jonah Hex is ambidextrous.


 * Recommended            =
 * All-Star Western (Volume 2)
 * Jonah Hex (Volume 1)
 * Jonah Hex (Volume 2)
 * Jonah Hex and Other Western Tales
 * Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such
 * Jonah Hex: Shadows West
 * Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo
 * Hex
 * Weird Western Tales (Volume 1)
 * Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe XI

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 * DC                     =
 * Wikipedia              =
 * Links                  =
 * Jonah Hex article at Wikipedia
 * Jonah Hex page at Toonpedia
 * Jonah Hex fan page
 * Jonah Hex biography page at the Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe