I always find it weird that Jonah Hex got the love he got. Horrific scars, Confederate, mercenary. I know he had a moral code (like Enemy Ace) but still, amazing longevity for a character like that.
Well, I've noticed that any story in comics that deals with the Civil War is an issue that is very difficult to keep in stock. There are a lot of Civil War buffs. I once in my job phoned a client who was in North Carolina and in the course of small talk discussed regional history and the Civil war, and he said something to the effect of "A lot of good men died in that war...", as if he knew them personally
!!I was like "Uhh... yeah..."
In the former Confederate States, there is a large percentage of locals who are deeply immersed in that history, who know that history extremely well, or even have a revisionist romanticised reverence for the "Old South".
So, I'm sure that mindset taps into some of Jonah Hex's enduring popularity.
Beyond that, I also see Jonah Hex as an anti-hero in the vein of Clint Eastwood's "the man with no name" bounty hunter character in the 3 Sergio Leone spaghetti western films. A ruthless bounty hunter who kills and stacks up the bodies without a second thought.
I guess Jonah Hex has a sort of personal moral code of sorts. There are particular people he feels sympathy for, that he either defends or avenges. And occasionally criminals he lets go because they have turned away from their criminal past, or participated in crimes against their will.
And others Hex kills by the dozen without a second thought, or even takes satisfaction in killing. Kind of like Conan or Tarzan, he is not accountable to the laws of civilization, he is a law unto himself, the law of the jungle, or as termed in this country, "frontier justice".
Jonah Hex in many stories is an almost supernatural force of nature, almost indestructible, a gunman who seemingly can't be killed, who is terrifying because he can't be stopped, and if he is coming for you, you're as good as dead already.
So the Confederate element is certainly a big part of his appeal, and in issues that rolled out his origin, the Civil War is where his disfigurement and legend began.
On the other point you make, about Jonah Hex's disfigurement making him oddly popular despite that, there are actually, across many decades of comics history, many disfigured or monstrous characters who tend to be very popular with readers. Ben Grimm/The Thing, Swamp Thing, Two-Face, the Joker, Dr. Doom, and Orion (in New Gods), to name a few I can easily recall.
I think of Jonah Hex as a Michael Fleisher creation, but Jonah Hex was actually created by John Albano and Tony Dezuniga, who did the series for about 3 years, before Albano moved on and Fleisher took over the character in 1974.
![[Linked Image from ifanboy.com]](https://ifanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/All-Star-Western-Vol.-2-10-1972-Cover.jpg)
Jonah Hex first appeared in
ALL STAR WESTERN 10 and 11, beginning February/March 1971.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/All-Star-Western-1970/Issue-10?id=54086https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/All-Star-Western-1970/Issue-11?id=54087Then the series changed title to
WEIRD WESTERN TALES (and Jonah Hex appeared in 12-38, before being moved to his own title in 1977) . Fleisher took over the writing with WEIRD WESTERN issue 22, in May 1974.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Weird-Western-Tales-1972/Issue-12?id=54097And then continued after 1977 for another 92 issues with
JONAH HEX in his own title. All written by Fleisher.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Jonah-Hex-1977/Issue-1?id=38854And then in 1985-1987, as said in prior posts, he was time-transported and re-invented as a post-apocalyptic future character in the
HEX series for another 18 issues, also by Fleisher
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Hex/Issue-1?id=54066And then there's also the
DC SPECIAL SERIES 15 story (1978) set in the early 1900's, where Jonah Hex's final fate is revealed, where he was killed, then stuffed and mounted, and his remains made part of a travelling wild west show. Bizarre
!https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/DC-Special-Series/Issue-16?id=62923Also from the brain of Michael Fleisher.
And no exploration of the brain and collected work of Michael Fleisher would be complete without mentioning his run on The Spectre in
ADVENTURE COMICS 431-440 https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Adventure-Comics-1938/Issue-431?id=41517
