You’re Trapped In Here With Me: All-Star Western #22 Review

When I reviewed the first issue of All-Star Western almost two years ago now, I was semi-enthusiastic, but bemoaned the fact that the creative team of writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, and artist Moritat, had taken Jonah Hex off of the western frontier and dumped him into Gotham City. As I recall, I referred to the book as “Crocodile Dundee with dead hookers,” because dropping Hex into an urban setting, even in the late 1800s, felt like a well-trod fish-out-of-water story.

So you would think that All-Star Western #22, which features Hex being stuck in modern, 21st century Gotham City, would drive me absolutely fucking apeshit. Because on paper, if All-Star Western #1 was Crocodile Dundee, All-Star Western #22 should be Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. Seriously, this book has all the elements that should drive me up the Goddamned wall: Hex baffled by a radio? Yup! Hex shocked and offended by the forward nature of modern conversation? Uh-huh! Hex amazed by an automobile? Hell, yes! If you go down the list of the classic fish-out-of-water stories, the only thing that’s missing is Hex trying to take a shit in a phone booth!

So case closed, right? I wasn’t thrilled with Hex in old Gotham, so I must hate Hex in modern Gotham, correct? Well, you’d think so… but it’s really the opposite. I enjoyed the hell out of this issue, not in spite of the fact that it was a fish-out-of-water story, but because of it. Because All-Star Western #22 isn’t a fish-out-of-water comedy; after all, Jonah Hex isn’t funny. He is a very dangerous man… and other than Batman and one or two other guys and girls, there are very few truly dangerous people in Gotham City.

You know… other than Jonah Hex.

…One For Each Of You: 2 Guns Red Band Trailer Released

Hey, didja know that 2 Guns, that movie you’ve seen advertised on TV with Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington where they obviously cough up the ending by showing Denzel saying “Make it rain,” and blowing up the car full of money, was based on a comic book? Yeah, neither did I until I came across the recently reprinted trade paperback of writer Steven Grant’s 2007 original at the Boom Studios booth at SDCC. And frankly, I didn’t even make the connection between the comic and the movie when I bought the book, because the title of the movie had never stuck to my brain, since 30 seconds of trailer was all it took for me to think, “Yeah, this is the movie that Denzel takes to pay the mortgage in between his semiannual Oscar bait flicks, and that Marky Mark takes when he’s, well, being Marky Mark. Pass.”

The comic itself is a pretty decent read – an undercover DEA agent and an undercover Naval Intelligence officer are manipulated into trying to sting each other into robbing a bank, before finding out that the bank belongs to someone who doesn’t rely on the FDIC to recover their losses, and that some other parties have plans for this off-the-books stolen money, requiring the two guys to go rogue – and was certainly entertaining enough to get me through an hour of the flight home last week. So the trade is certainly well worth picking up this Wednesday if you’re a light action crime comic fan (hard-boiled noir it ain’t, but it has a decent enough edge to keep you in suspense) and you have an extra 15 bucks to burn.

Grant apparently made a decent chunk of change for himself and Boom Studios for doing the flick, and Grant has not only been doing a series of columns for Comic Book Resources under the name Temporary Madness that could serve as a crash course for comic creators hoping to someday make that mad Robert Kirkman money off of their idea, but has announced that he’s working on sequel Three Guns (because Grant’s not a dope, fer Chrissake)… but none of that addresses whether the movie, which is being released in the United States this Friday, August 2nd, is to par with the comic, or worth what will cost you, after popcorn and a Coke at a 10:30 a.m. bargain matinee, more than the trade paperback.

Well, to help you make up your mind, a final red band trailer for the movie has been released, featuring more violence, profanity and nudity than we’ve seen to date. And while to me, even knowing that the film is based on the work of a comic writer I like, it still screams “Wait for cable!”, and I suspect the director might have spent a large percentage of the shoot saying, “Denzel, Mark: banter like dudes. You know, bros! Aaannnd, action!”, your mileage may vary. So check it out after the jump.