For anyone who missed All Star Western #1, we were introduced to Dr. Arkham and re-introduced to Jonah Hex. It was a great starting point for new readers, and a great story for anyone already familiar with the world of Jonah Hex.

Told through a combination of action and journal entries, Arkham’s observations helped to illuminate Jonah’s character (or, at least, Arkham’s INTERPRETATION of his character) as well as shedding light on the events happening in Arkham. In short, women were being murdered, and Arkham, deciding it was time to fight fire with fire, hired Hex to help bring the killer to justice.

The second issue dispenses with the journal-entry format of the first issue, which saddened me as I quite enjoyed what Palmiotti and Gray were doing. However, sometimes something has to be lost in order for something else to be gained. What we gained with issue two was speed. Issue one moved deliberately forward toward a confrontation, all the while introducing the characters and world. With issue two, the confrontation has begun; the "league of evil" (not their actual name) has been discovered and they’ve taken the appropriate measures to ensure Hex and Arkham will take this knowledge to their grave. The story moves quickly and toward a climactic end to the current arc. And the idea of Gotham becoming an evil sort of Vatican City was quite interesting.

With that said, I did have one initial complaint: I wasn’t ready for a back-up story. I was having so much fun with Hex and Arkham that I wasn’t ready to leave them, or have THEIR story cut short to make space for another’s. Of course, it’s hard for me to stay mad at a story involving zombies and demons in the Old West, so even my one complaint evaporated. But... is it just me, or did the demon look a lot like Zorro…?

Rating: 8.5/10

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