Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1 Review
Writer, Artist & Cover Artist: Michael Walsh
Colorist: Toni-Marie Griffin
Letterer: Becca Carey
Variant Cover Artists: Brian Bolland & Julian Totino Tedesco
Next Level Variant Cover Artist: Hayden Sherman
1:25 Variant Cover Artist: Javier Rodriguez
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.99 US/Variant $4.99 US (Card Stock)
Release Date: October 7, 2026
He has had many lives. The lives he has ended weigh on his soul. Yet no matter how determined he is to get through each day, Jonah's past threatens to drag him to the ground. Some memories refuse to fade. They plague his nights and haunt his days. And if Jonah can’t forget them, at least he can strive to live a better life.
What shadows darken Jonah Hex's life? And what helps him get through each day? Let's leap into Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1 and see!
Story
Even if he returns from death, Jonah Hex remembers the fear and pain he experienced each time. And he knows that, while he returned to life, the people he killed did not. So, the former soldier gives up his life as a bounty hunter. He plunks his blood-stained savings into a one-room cabin. Yet, finding a new reason to live proves harder than he imagined.
In Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1, Jonah is not a farmer, a shop owner, or anyone's employee. After spending his career killing people, he prefers to keep his distance from them. Still, Jonah needs help dealing with the painful memories that ended his career. So, when his bottles run dry, he saddles his horse and rides to a nearby town for alcohol.
Michael Walsh begins his tale with an incident from Jonah’s past. Then, he introduces Jonah and the world he inhabits. The nearby town of Ashecott offers few comforts. Everyone reacts to Jonah differently. Yet like Jonah, most prefer to keep their distance. Still, the more imaginative souls value his experience and seek to learn more of his exploits. But to all of them, Jonah Hex has one message: “Let me be.”
In another life, Jonah excelled as a tracker. Yet, as his experience has taught him, a reputation can be the hardest posse to shake. But perhaps stories of his exploits aren’t the only thing Jonah can’t avoid. Perhaps the curse that made him deathless has sunk into the soil. Instead of avoiding his past, perhaps the man who hung up his revolvers should try harder to understand what happened to him in Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1.
Art
The past lives again as Michael Walsh opens his tale. Wobbly borders surround panels in this opening scene, while straight white frames separate scenes in Jonah’s redemption arc. Jonah’s shirt hangs on a wooden chair. Two bottles lay on the floor of his one-room cabin. As Jonah sits up on his bedroll on the wooden floor, scars adorn his gaunt features, while X-marks on his chest and arms echo his disfigured cheek. Haunted by his memories, Jonah seeks comfort by pressing his forehead against his horse's. Later, he rides past a carrion bird pecking at a carcass. A gravedigger works near a plot adorned with a cross to an Unknown corpse.
As the sun sinks toward the horizon, men gather in a patch of green. Yet when Brennan hesitates, indigo creeps onto him. As he whispers his desire to do no harm, it covers him entirely. When Jonah awakens in his cabin, orange and red surround him. He sits on the indigo floor, his gray skin suggesting his deathless nature. As they reach town, Toni-Marie Griffin colors Jonah and his horse Peanut indigo. Inset panels across a two-page spread highlight orange-colored aspects of town life. Yet in their inset, Jonah and Peanut have more natural coloring in Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1.
Becca Carey fills white dialogue balloons with a hand-printed-style uppercase font. Letters swell and enlarge for raised voices and shrink for lowered voices. The narrator's voice appears as lowercase black letters on scraps of beige paper. Sound effects amplify gunshots, horses' hooves, acts of brutality, drinking, a bell tolling, and creaking in the night. Yet the violet-red blood adorning Jonah's chest in his memory links with an image of death inside a similarly colored sound effect. So, Jonah wears a violet-red bandana to remember his vow. Thanks to DC Comics for sharing this story with us.
Final Thoughts
Jonah has worked hard and fought the good fight. Yet all too often, he has done what's easy and called it Necessity. So, as a new era of his life dawns, he chooses a difficult path and calls it Hope in Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1.
Rating 9.6/10
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