All Star Western 1: Pistolníci Z Gothamu (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
After catching P/G's fun run on Power Girl, I figured these guys would have a fun take on the old Jonah Hex & company mythology. Not. Even. Close.Why did they decide to suck out all the fun by narrating this story with a psychological discourse on the inner workings of a cypher like Jonah Hex? Talk about bashing in the skull of a great universe - turning it into a lecture or treatise, deconstructing Jonah. Bo-ring. Aaron did a great thing with Bullseye trying to get into Frank Castle's head in that amazing Punisher MAX run. These guys make me feel like I'm sitting in a shitty psych lecture.What makes this so tiresome is the old "show don't tell" principle - the damned 'doctor' (a fucking wet sock and intellectual arsehole if I ever met one) just won't shut UP about how much Hex does violence, and why that shocks him so. Jaysus jumping legbone guys, you're mashing any shock value into a pulp. Put down the fucking pen guys, and give the artist a sliver of room to breathe.It's like someone had never seen a protagonist beating up goons to get info out of them, and wanted to protect our delicate sensibilities from the horrors of fisticuffs. Go read a Spider-Man or Daredevil comic for the sake of all that's bloody.And setting the story in Gotham? Of all the places in the US to pick, isn't it getting a *little* tiresome to keep dragging this place out, as if it's the only cesspool of human degradation and corruption? Deifying Gotham just makes it that much *less* impressive every time. Wouldn't it be interesting to hear about some nowhere place for once? Or drag in Star City and show where it came from? Anything but another "this town is the worst I've ever seen" old saw.FFS, this book officially jumped the shark when they brought out a giant man-sized bat. Is there any specific reference to modern Bat-verse these tools *won't* try to shove up our drug-smuggling orifices? Killing the damned thing (which was presented as a horrifying cliffhanger not two pages before) so easily was especially boner-killing (as if this book didn't smear grandma-boob-level excitement killers all over my imagination already.)Some good art in this book, but filled with boring action and stiff acting. I was excited when DC tried to fit Jonah Hex into their "New 52" reboot event. Not so much because I'm a huge fan of Jonah Hex or anything, I just like a myself a good western. That said I really wanted to enjoy All Star Western for what it is - an action packed comic book western planted in the DCU. Sadly, I think the first volume of the ongoing series misses more marks than it hits.The series kicks off with Jonah Hex arriving in Gotham. Yes, the cowboy ends up in Gotham (which isn't Gotham an east coast city? I though this was All Star WESTERN? Issue 1 takes place on the east coast?). At first I thought it was cool that they were trying to tie the ASW title into the greater DCU picture by introducing a 19th century Gotham. The problem with this isn't so much Gotham as the setting itself, rather the fact that Gotham is ALWAYS Batman territory, and the introductory arc for Jonah Hex and ASW basically ends up serving as a super primordial prelude to the epic cross-title Batman: Court of Owls tie-in. Even in terms of a tie in standards, linking the Court of Owls in Gotham to ancient Gotham was a smart idea that helps build the whole Court mythos for the Bat-titles.But that's the problem...the book (and Jonah Hex) serves to build A BATMAN BOOK. Jonah Hex spends 6 issues in Gotham finding murders, playing a lame cowboy Sherlock Holmes with Amadeus Arkham, and discovering the bat-cave before it's...well, the bat-cave. Nowhere in those 6 issues does the reader learn anything about Jonah Hex. The book does nothing establishing a mythos of rogues and history for Hex himself, which is stupid consider the majority of the series seems to be about him. His introduction into the new DCU is basically just to build another Batman plot. THAT I find distracting and lame, especially considering how strong a character Jonah Hex can be.Additionally there are two side-story arcs that follow through the first six issues. One deals with some western-Fantoma ripoff named El Diablo, and the other deals with western Chinese triads. I dunno, they were boring, but those characters served to build the ASW book outside the Batman licking Jonah Hex.Basically the story is pretty sub par and the art is pedestrian. Was not a fan of this first volume, but the end of issue 6 gave me some hope that this book can find some light and build. It's just not happening here.
What do You think about All Star Western 1: Pistolníci Z Gothamu (2014)?
An interesting story, but I really think that bringing Jonah Hex to Gotham City was a bad, bad idea.
—llama
I was just waiting for a Wayne cameo... If you like Gotham, go for All Star Western..
—aoki
one of the best of the New 52. top of my pile every month.
—Internos
