Origins Born on November 1, 1838, in northwestern
Missouri to Woodson and Virginia Hex, Jonah and his mother were regular victims of physical abuse inflicted by his father, an alcoholic. Virginia eventually left Woodson with a traveling salesman, planning to return for Jonah after becoming established elsewhere, though she ultimately became a prostitute to survive. 1851, Woodson sold his son as a slave to a local
Apache tribe. They worked him constantly until he saved their chieftain from a
puma; in gratitude, the chief took Jonah as his adopted son, but this angered his own son, Noh-Tante. Noh-Tante shared Jonah's affections for a young girl named White Fawn, so he betrayed his adopted brother during their manhood rite at the age of 16 and left Jonah to die at the hands of a party of
Kiowa Indians. A patrol of American cavalrymen came to his aid, but when they saw him trying to help the Kiowa, the soldiers shot him as well. Jonah survived only when an old trapper scavenging the site found him clinging to life and nursed him back to health. Returning to his tribe's camp, he found that they had already left, leaving him without a family once again.
American Civil War Jonah eventually returned to American civilization, becoming a
cavalry scout in the
United States Army. When the
Civil War broke out in 1861, Jonah, feeling that the South was justified in seeking independence, joined the
Confederate States Army and earned a commission as a lieutenant in the 4th Cavalry. It was during this time that he made his first friend, a fellow-soldier named Jeb Turnbull. Various battles Hex is mentioned as having fought in include Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and Chickamagua. He refused to tell the commander where his unit was stationed, but one of his aides was able to determine their location by studying the clay from the shoes of Jonah's horse. The Confederates were caught by surprise, and all of them were captured. The commander, humiliated by Jonah easily penetrating the fort's poor security, falsely praised him for his "assistance" in the attack. Hex punched him and was sentenced to solitary confinement. Jonah discovered a shaft beneath his cell and used it to find where his comrades were being held. With Jeb's help, he rallied them and worked out a plan to use the shaft to sneak all of them out. What Hex did not realize was that the "escape tunnel" was a trap. The commander had run out of food to feed his captives, and had ordered the shaft to be dug in secret knowing that the prisoners would use it to try and escape. In an event that came to be known as the "Fort Charlotte Massacre", Union soldiers ambushed and gunned down nearly all of the fleeing Confederates, including Jeb. Jonah was shot himself, but managed to kill the treacherous commander before escaping. A handful of survivors, believing that Hex had betrayed them, returned home and told everyone they could find that Jonah Hex was a murderer and a traitor. Now hunted by both sides, Jonah patched himself up and moved out toward the Western territories to start over, though given his participation in later battles he evidently rejoined the Confederate Army. His grandson Woodson Hex wrote that Hex surrendered twice in the War. In the Battle of Chancellorsville Hex was the soldier who accidentally shot
Stonewall Jackson and since then annually visited his grave. Hex continued to fight in the war until the end of the war, surrendering a second time on April 23, 1865, at the Federal Stockade at Lynchburg, Virginia.
Mark of the Demon Jonah came across his old tribe and found that Noh-Tante had since married White Fawn. He revealed Noh-Tante's betrayal to the chieftain, but the accusations were denied and it was decided that they would settle their dispute through combat. Noh-Tante sabotaged Jonah's tomahawk so it would break, forcing Jonah to stab him with a knife. Enraged that Jonah had killed his son and broken the rules of combat, the chieftain had him restrained and disfigured with the "mark of the demon" by scarring the right side of his face with a heated tomahawk. With the mark serving as proof of his wickedness, Jonah was banished from the tribe. Years later, when he and his partner Henri d'Aubergnon sought to rescue a white woman held captive by the tribe, Jonah saw the man he once considered his "true father" shoot White Fawn for trying to protect him. Without hesitation, he gunned down the elderly chieftain and slaughtered most of the Apaches. He then picked up his first job: hunting down an old army buddy named Eddie Cantwell. Eight years later, they met again after Hex brought in the Jason Crowley gang and collected their bounties. He then found Stoneham, who uses a wheelchair after losing the use of his legs. Although he was tempted to take revenge, Hex instead shared a drink with Stoneham and left him in peace. Hex was then hired by the town of Paradise Corners to kill the outlaw "Big" Jim. Hex grew fond of the town and decided to settle there, but the locals, disgusted by his appearance, forced him to leave. He rescued a man named Terry White from starvation in the desert and saved his life, but when White stole from him and fled, Hex hunted him down and killed him.
Weird Western Tales Jonah befriended a wolf named Iron Jaws when he failed to stop white settlers from slaughtering the peaceful band of
Pawnee Indians who had owned him.
Gunfighter Windy Taylor, who had taught Hex everything he knew about shooting, asked him to help find his son, Tod Taylor, who had turned outlaw. Tod gunned down his father and Hex was forced to kill him. Iron Jaws died after venturing into the desert to rescue Hex after two criminals tied him up and left him to die of exposure. Hex dealt with a corrupt sheriff defrauding his constituents in one town, and then a corrupt hanging judge at the next. He was hired by the manager of a sideshow attraction to act as his bodyguard, then murdered the man when he tried to frame him for a heinous crime. Finding an escaped psychopath on the run, he killed the man after learning that he was a famous murderer known as the "Gentleman Killer". When some bandits Hex had been pursuing injured an old lady who had shown him kindness, he paid for her medical treatment before chasing down and butchering the men who had hurt her. During a hunt for criminal Blackjack Jorgis, Hex was ambushed by ex-Confederates sent by Quentin Turnbull, father of his deceased friend Jeb. Hex escaped death, but his friend and mentor, Hank Brewster, was shot dead and his first horse, the General, was killed by stray bullets. Briefly hired by the U.S. Secret Service, he toppled an assassination conspiracy against
Ulysses S. Grant. Temporarily blinded from his injuries, he managed to take down an entire gang without his sight. He fought corrupt army officials in league with a greedy landowner who was organizing robbers to prey on travelling pioneers, and avenged the victims they had left to die.
Five Warriors from Forever The
Lord of Time assembled a team, known as the Five Warriors from Forever, when he believed that his time-machine, the Eternity Brain, would end all existence. This team included Jonah Hex alongside
Black Pirate,
Enemy Ace, Miss Liberty, and the
Viking Prince; to make them powerful enough to become a threat, they were each energized with a special force. Their purpose was to fight the
Justice League and
Justice Society to strengthen their resolve through defeat, which they succeeded in doing. Eventually, the Five Warriors rebelled against their master and assaulted the Palace of Eternity. Hex got into a gun-fight with a
T-Rex, but he and his teammates were defeated and eventually returned to their own times using the Cosmic Treadmill. He later encountered the
Justice League separately, with several other Western heroes including
Bat Lash,
Cinnamon, and
Scalphunter. The Lord of Time sent members of the League back to the 19th century as part of an absurd plot to rule the world. Jonah met an amnesiac
Hal Jordan in the desert and nursed him back to health. The two teamed up with
Elongated Man,
Flash, and
Zatanna to take down some robotic gunfighters while the League dealt with an anti-matter asteroid that threatened to destroy the Earth. In the present,
Superman defeated the Time Lord and restored things to normal.
Family Hex married a Chinese immigrant, Mei Ling, who made him promise to give up bounty hunting and violence. However, on at least one occasion Hex returned to bounty hunting to pay the mortgage on their farm after their corn crop caught fire. Together they had a son named Jason. Hex also hired a neighbor's son as a farmhand, and while teaching him to shoot Jason was stung by a scorpion. While treating him the farmhand was kidnapped by old rivals who mistook him for Hex's son. Hex went to rescue the farm boy, much to the outrage of Mei Ling who took Jason and left Hex. Afterwards, Hex returned to bounty hunting though he briefly encountered Mei Ling again. As an adult Jason tracked down his aging father, told him Mei Ling died, but Hex was uninterested in further reunion. He then bumped into a woman with a child, not realized it was Jason's wife and son, and Jason told his wife Hex was no one. Jason's son Woodson Hex later wrote a biography of Jonah Hex.
Crisis on Infinite Earths Hex became involved in the first
Crisis when he was summoned, along with several other heroes, to fight for the
Monitor. Jonah Hex fought against the Shadow Demons alongside Bat Lash,
Cyborg,
Firebrand,
John Stewart,
Johnny Thunder,
Nighthawk,
Psimon, and
Scalphunter.
Alex Luthor and
Harbinger gathered the heroes of several Earths to discuss strategy, and Hex was present in the crowd to witness
Pariah's warnings.
Hex Jonah Hex disappeared in a flash of light one night at a saloon in 1875. He was abducted from his own era by the villainous Reinhold Borsten (and with unintentional help from Access), who transported him into a post-apocalyptic
Seattle, Washington in the 21st century. His intention was to force the legendary Hex to fight for him, but instead Jonah escaped and met a motorcycle gang named the Road Reapers. They immediately took him in after he rescued their warrior Stiletta, and he obtained a zonesuit to protect himself from radiation by killing their cowardly leader, Falcon, in self-defense. His next companions were a group of
time-travelers, a unit of soldiers from the
Vietnam War; the group was betrayed by a robotic duplicate of Stiletta and none survived except for a Cpt. Stanley Harris. Hex took a job as a guard for a drug dealer named Barnaby Blossom. When he discovered that Barnaby was getting kids hooked, he killed the man. The real Stiletta tracked him down, and they became stranded in the desert together without water after a roadside ambush. They survived by walking twelve miles to an oasis and fighting off killer mutant worms. Having attracted negative attention from the underworld organization known as the Conglomerate by disrupting their drug operations, Hex and Stiletta were hunted down by a mercenary named Chain, who they defeated in a confrontation in a junkyard. The Conglomerate then changed tactics, enlisting Hex to help them take down Borsten, and he allowed himself to be captured by Borsten in a fight, planning to use his time-travel technology to return home. Stiletta and Harris broke into Borsten's complex to help him and Harris was sent home, but the equipment was destroyed before Hex could use it. He and Stiletta escaped as the building exploded, and Borsten apparently died in the blast. Resigned to his fate, Hex got his hands on more advanced guns after he won a competition at a dangerous live-shooting gallery, but Stiletta was abducted and seemingly killed while he was distracted. He was then captured by a scientist named Dr. Adamant who planned to convert Hex into a cyborg for his "utopia" of artificial life, but Hex escaped and wiped him out along with his creations. His next challenge was an anti-sin cult called the Sin Killers, whom he dealt with while rescuing the kidnapped daughter of a local man. Borsten was later revealed to have survived the explosion. Briefly, Jonah met the
Legion of Super-Heroes while they were travelling in their Time Bubble. New York City's leading crime syndicate, the Combine, sent Hex after their greatest enemy, the
Batman, by framing him for Stiletta's murder; the two men fought and nearly killed each other. Realizing that they were on the same side, Hex helped Batman stop the Combine from unleashing their war machines on the innocents of the city. Stiletta was discovered to still be alive, having been brainwashed and trained as a professional wrestler, under the name "Blonde Spitfire". Briefly, Jonah was captured by two cannibals and forced to escape through the sewers. He then began hunting down members of the Combine. The Road Reapers were captured by a group of warriors called the Dogs of War, who pressed them into slave labor for their master, an alien named S'ven Tarah. Jonah was forced to fight Stiletta, but he was able to free her from her wrestler persona after knocking her out. Tarah revealed that he was also a time-traveller and that his slave camps were building a machine to thwart an alien invasion from the Xxggs. Hex was attacked by his old enemy Chain again in revenge for their last battle, but defeated him a second time. Having been made a slave by Tarah's ally Manta, Hex organized his fellow-captives to escape and fought an enforcer named Starkad on his way out. Stanley Harris revealed that he was actually one of the Dogs of War, and enlisted Jonah's service. They fought against the Xxggs for the future of humanity and succeeded, but Tarah admitted that he was unable to return Hex to 1875. Hex chose to spend
Thanksgiving Day with Stiletta. They went to a long-abandoned amusement park, where Hex found his own stuffed corpse in a display. Realizing that the body was from his own time in the past, Hex found comfort knowing that someday he would get to go home.
Two-Gun Mojo Jonah Hex met another bounty-hunter, Slow Go Smith, who became his friend and partner. Smith was killed by gun-toting
zombies in a barn, and Hex was framed for his murder. Fleeing from the law, Hex investigated the origins of the zombies and learned that they were given life by
snake oil merchant Doc "Cross" Williams. Williams, using his knowledge of
voodoo from his travels in
Haiti, had created an army of the dead to serve him, even reanimating the corpse of
Wild Bill Hickok to be his personal bodyguard. Cross sought to do the same to Hex, but he escaped and confronted the Doc. Jonah put Hickok down again by beating him on the draw, then avenged his friend by leaving Williams to die a slow, brutal death at the hands of the Apaches whose dead he had desecrated.
Riders of the Worm and Such After killing outlaw Stove Belly Jack and wiping out his gang, Hex met a giant
worm in the desert. He teamed up with the inhabitants of a local ranch who'd been under attack by the creatures. It turned out that the monsters were actually sentient, the half-bred rape children of an underground race and a human woman, and that they called themselves the Autumn Brothers. Hex rallied the ranchers to take the offensive. He led them in an assault on the tunnel system where the rest of the worms lived, slaughtering them as they went and blowing up their queen with dynamite.
Shadows West Jonah became a member of Buffalo Will's travelling Wild West Show after a trick-shooting midget named Long Tom saved his life. He reconnected with an old friend named Spotted Balls and met a local prostitute who gave birth to a Bear Boy. She claimed to have given birth after mating with a bear spirit. Hex decided to leave the camp with Spotted Balls and the squaw because he did not like the way things were run and feared that Will would try to exploit the Bear Boy. This infuriated the showman, who sent an armed posse led by Long Tom after them. Jonah killed most of his pursuers using carefully set traps, but Spotted Balls died in the final shootout. He was able to return the mother and her cub to its father and his spirit people. Returning to Will's camp with Long Tom's corpse, he swore to the corrupt promoter that if he ever saw him again he would kill him.
Face Full of Violence When a rich family hired him to track down their kidnapped son, Hex found the boy had become part of an underground dog-fighting ring and was forced to put him down when he contracted rabies. Bat Lash, a travelling gambler and vigilante, helped him take revenge against a corrupt lawman who tried to frame him. The mayor of a small town tried to have Hex hanged as a rapist to hide the incestuous rape of his mute daughter, but the townspeople lynched the politician instead when they learned the truth. While escorting a bounty on Christmas Day, he got into a gunfight, killing a dozen men who wanted to murder his quarry. In the town of
Salvation, he met a local gang who disguised themselves as nuns to hide from the law; Hex took them down when they tried to kill him.
Death Jonah Hex continued to work as a bounty-hunter until he retired at the age of 66 in 1904, having settled down with a Native American woman named Tall Bird. By then he was a living legend, with others amazed to see the greatest gunman of the Old West still alive in an era of airplanes and automobiles. A journalist, Michael Wheeler, visited Hex to write his biography. The entertainer L.B. Farnham also showed up, offering Hex a great deal of money to star in his "Wild West Revue" show, but Hex angrily turned him down, not wanting to spend his final years as a carnival attraction. Hex's last bounty was the gang of bank robber George Barrow; Barrow survived, and swore revenge. Playing cards in a
Cheyenne saloon, Hex was murdered by Barrow with a double-barreled shotgun while fumbling to put on his spectacles. His death was immediately avenged by his friend, sheriff Hank Crawford, who gunned down the unarmed Barrow in cold blood. In his dying moments, Hex reflected on the life that he had lived. Tall Bird and Wheeler attempted to give Jonah a proper Native American burial, but they were robbed at gunpoint by Farnham and an accomplice. Farnham had Wheeler shot and set fire to Tall Bird's house, leaving her to die. Hex's body was given to a taxidermist to be put in a gaudy outfit for display; Farnham and his associate were both killed by the "accidental" discharge (at point-blank range) of Jonah's hair-trigger guns while setting up the display and thieves stole the body after recognizing Hex. For years, the corpse changed hands and was moved by various owners, before finally ending up as a dummy at a Western-style theme park. Eventually, she decided to become a
bounty-huntress like her predecessor, using Grokk the Living Gargoyle as a steed. Jonah Hex was reanimated during
Blackest Night as a
zombie member of the
Black Lantern Corps, wielding a power ring. He returned to plague Quentin Turnbull's descendant Joshua. Joshua attacked Hex with a rocket launcher, but failed to destroy him. The young man pleaded for his life to Hex, joined by a Black Lantern version of Quentin who kills Joshua in cold blood. Hex and Quentin are killed when
Hal Jordan defeats
Nekron.
The New 52 During the 1880s in
The New 52, psychologist
Amadeus Arkham is recruited by Detective Lofton of the
Gotham City Police Department to help solve the case of the Gotham Butcher. GCPD chief John Cromwell finds Arkham's theories of the crime repugnant, as well as his decision to recruit Jonah Hex, who had recently caused a stir by coming to town. Even so, recognizing Hex's experience as a tracker, Arkham suggests that the two of them join forces, performing a separate investigation into the case. Together, they uncover
Gotham City's sect of the Religion of Crime, and its relation to the Butcher case. The solution of the Butcher case (revealed to be a conspiracy by several prominent Gotham citizens belonging to the Religion Of Crime) was simply the first of many dangerous cases the two approached in their partnership. During his time in Gotham, Hex runs afoul of the
Court of Owls,
Vandal Savage, and
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He also rekindles his love affair with
Tallulah Black, another bounty-hunter. After ending things with Arkham and preparing to return to the western territories, Hex encounters a semi-amnesiac
Booster Gold and is accidentally thrown into the 21st century where he is initially put in Arkham Asylum, believed to be a delusional imposter who has adopted the identity of the historical Jonah Hex. After taking the current administrator, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, hostage to escape the asylum, he convinces Jeremiah that he is indeed the same Jonah Hex who knew his great-grandfather, and after helping to take down a crazed gunman attacking a crowd of people, secures the legal assistance of
Bruce Wayne to get released from custody. He also meets and forms a relationship with a young woman named Gina. After several adventures where Hex encounters other heroes such as
John Constantine,
Swamp Thing, and
Superman while trying to find a way back home, Hex is horrified when he and Gina discover his preserved corpse on permanent display in a Wild West exhibition at the Metropolis Museum. Despodent and depressed, Hex is involved in a severe DUI accident that leaves him in a coma for over a month. Upon awakening, he finds that the doctors used 21st century medical technology to repair his ruined face and eye along with his injuries from the accident. Discharged from the hospital, Hex and Gina encounter Booster Gold, who is eager to undo his mistake. Although Hex tries to dissuade her, Gina insists on travelling with him to the 19th century. She soon dies while crossing the desert, and all Hex can do is bury her and move on. Soon after, Hex once again meets Tellulah Black, and discovers that he has been missing for about a year, during which time another man with similar injuries as his original appearance has taken on Hex's identity and has been using his notoriety to commit crimes and form his own gang. Realizing that this is the same man whose preserved body he saw in the future, Hex adopts the identity of "George Barrow", the man who has been on record as Hex's killer, and kills "Hex" before letting a pair of carnival showmen run off with the body. He and Tallulah then ride off into the sunset together.
DC Rebirth A robotic/alien version of Jonah Hex appears on a planet called Leone-5, modeled after the Wild West. He is introduced in the mini-series
Adventures of the Super Sons, issue 9. Jonah Hex made a brief appearance in the
Batman Universe series. He also is mentioned a few times by his great-great-granddaughter, Virginia "Jinny" Hex, who appears in
Batman Universe and
Young Justice, having taken up a career as a hero after learning that she inherited her ancestor's exceptional abilities. ==Powers and abilities==