Intro: The Day My Favorite Western Hero Rode a Motorcycle!

I’ll never forget flipping through the new releases at my local comic shop in the summer of ’85. There, nestled between issues of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and “Batman,” was something that made me do a double-take so hard I nearly gave myself whiplash. The cover showed a familiar scarred face—unmistakably Jonah Hex—but everything else was… wrong. Instead of a horse, he standing in front of a futuristic ‘motorcycle’. Instead of a dusty Western town, he was blasting through what looked like rejects from a nuclear armageddon.

“What fresh hell is this?” I remember thinking, both appalled and intrigued. I’d been following Jonah’s adventures since I discovered back issues of “Weird Western Tales” a few years earlier. The gritty, morally complex bounty hunter with the hideously scarred face had become one of my favorite characters in comics. And now DC had seemingly lost their collective minds, yanking him from his proper 19th-century setting and hurling him into some kind of “Road Warrior” knockoff.

I bought it immediately, of course.

The Perfect Storm of 80s Comic Book Madness

Looking back now, nearly forty years later, I can appreciate just how perfectly “Hex” embodied its era. The mid-80s were a wild time for comics—Alan Moore was deconstructing superheroes in “Watchmen,” Frank Miller was reimagining Batman as a psychological noir in “The Dark Knight Returns,” and DC was literally rewriting their entire universe with “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”

In this climate of creative upheaval, transporting a Western character to a post-apocalyptic future somehow made a twisted kind of sense. Plus, let’s be honest—post-apocalyptic fiction was EVERYWHERE in the 80s. The “Mad Max” films were cultural phenomena, “Escape from New York” had made Kurt Russell the coolest man alive, and even kids’ cartoons were getting in on the dystopian action.

When writer Michael Fleisher (who had been scripting Jonah’s adventures since 1974) decided to save his struggling Western series by embracing the apocalypse, he was riding a zeitgeist wave that was cresting through all of pop culture. The original “Jonah Hex” title was barely hanging on—it had been reduced to bi-monthly publication, which in the comic industry is basically hospice care for a dying series.

What Made “Hex” So Gloriously Weird

For those who’ve never experienced this glorious oddity, “Hex” ran for 18 issues from 1985 to 1987. The premise was both simple and absolutely bonkers: Our favorite scarred bounty hunter is mysteriously transported from the post-Civil War frontier to the year 2050, where nuclear war has reduced America to a wasteland ruled by warring factions.

Jonah, being the adaptable survivor he always was, quickly trades his Confederate gray for leather body armor and his horse for a motorcycle. The series followed him as he alternated between trying to find a way home and reluctantly becoming a player in the power struggles of this shattered future.

Mark Texeira’s artwork on those early issues was phenomenal—gritty, dynamic, and perfectly suited to the dusty post-apocalyptic landscape. The world-building was genuinely interesting too: while “Mad Max” made gasoline the precious resource everyone fought over, “Hex” went with water, which honestly makes more sense for a society trying to rebuild.

And before we continue, I want us all to just call it like it is and admit that Mark Texeira draws the best explosions in all of comics. Don’t believe me? Well then, feast your eyes on this!

When Worlds (and Genres) Collide

What I loved most about “Hex” was how it maintained the essence of the character while completely changing his context. Jonah was still the same bitter, violent, oddly principled anti-hero—he just had different tools and vehicles at his disposal.

The Western and post-apocalyptic genres have always been spiritual cousins anyway. Both feature lawless frontiers where survival depends on individual skill and grit. Both explore societies forming at the edges of civilization (or from its ashes). Both typically feature morally ambiguous protagonists who follow their own code in a world where conventional morality is a luxury few can afford.

Some of the storylines were genuinely innovative. In issues #11-12, Jonah encountered a future version of Batman (because why not?) Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes showed up in issue #10, creating one of those wonderful comic book continuity headaches that keep fans debating for decades. But the most brilliant touch came at the end of the series’ run, when Jonah discovered his own stuffed, taxidermied body on display in a museum—a direct callback to the “Jonah Hex Spectacular” from 1978 that had shown his ultimate fate in 1904. That discovery was a stroke of dark genius, confirming that Jonah would eventually find his way back to his own time, only to meet the grim end that had already been established in canon. Talk about a gut punch!

Why It Didn’t Last (But Should Have)

Despite its creative ambition, “Hex” never found a large enough audience to survive. The series was cancelled after 18 issues, leaving many storylines unresolved—including the central question of how Jonah would make it back to the 19th century.

Part of the problem was that the series alienated some traditional Jonah Hex fans (like myself, initially) who felt the character belonged exclusively in a Western setting. Meanwhile, it struggled to attract enough new readers who might have enjoyed the post-apocalyptic setting but weren’t familiar with the character’s history.

Interestingly, Michael Fleisher claimed that “Hex” was more popular overseas than in the United States. This makes sense to me—European comics have a stronger tradition of genre-blending and experimental storytelling, and post-apocalyptic themes have long been popular in European media.

The series also ran into two significant continuity problems. First, its nuclear-devastated North America of 2050 directly contradicted the established future timeline of the “Legion of Super-Heroes.” Second, Jonah’s already-established death in 1904 created a paradox regarding how he could be transported to 2050 and still meet his documented fate. While the discovery of his stuffed corpse implied he would eventually return to his own time, the series ended without explaining the mechanism.

Why You Should Track Down “Hex” Today

If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction—especially if you enjoy the aesthetic of those classic 80s dystopian stories—”Hex” is absolutely worth seeking out. These comics are pure, unfiltered 80s post-nuclear madness, with all the leather outfits, weird tribal societies, and jury-rigged vehicles you could possibly want.

What makes “Hex” special among post-apocalyptic stories is its protagonist. Jonah isn’t a born-and-raised wasteland dweller like Max Rockatansky—he’s a 19th-century man thrust into this nightmare future. His perspective as an outsider who’s already accustomed to violence and hardship gives the series a unique flavor that sets it apart from other entries in the genre.

The complete 18-issue run hasn’t been collected in a proper trade paperback (a crime, if you ask me), but individual issues can still be found in back-issue bins and online marketplaces for surprisingly reasonable prices. Unlike many “key” comics from the 80s, “Hex” hasn’t been inflated by speculators or movie hype.

A Beautiful Failure Worth Celebrating

“Hex” may have been a commercial failure, but it represents a kind of creative risk-taking that I sometimes miss in today’s more calculated comic book market. There’s something gloriously unhinged about DC’s decision to take one of their distinctive Western characters and drop him into a completely different genre—like if Marvel suddenly decided to send Daredevil to space or make Doctor Strange a hardboiled detective.

What I’ve come to appreciate most about “Hex” over the years is how it added to Jonah’s mythology rather than detracting from it. As comics commentator Chris Sims perfectly put it, “For a lot of characters, the weird, short-lived failed experiment where they were dropped into another genre would probably be glossed over… But for Jonah Hex, this wild adventure into Mad Max times just somehow added to the weird mythology of a character that had been specifically created for, well, ‘Weird Western Tales.'”

That’s the beauty of Jonah Hex as a character—he’s weird enough, tough enough, and distinctive enough that he can survive absolutely anything, even being yanked out of his own century and thrown into the apocalypse. The fact that he remained recognizably himself throughout this bizarre experiment is a testament to how well-crafted the character is at his core.

So here’s to “Hex”—one of comics’ strangest experiments, a beautiful failure, and a reminder that sometimes the most interesting stories come from taking big swings, even if they don’t always connect. If you love post-apocalyptic fiction, weird comic book history, or just appreciate creative audacity, do yourself a favor and track down these forgotten gems. I promise you’ve never read anything quite like them.