Hex #5 "The Seattle Chainsaw Massacre"

Hex #5 Jan 1986
"The Seattle Chainsaw Massacre"
Michael Fleisher, story - Mark Texiera and Carlos Garzon, art and cover

The three Conglomerate hoods land their hovo in front of the cave that Jonah and Stiletta have just emerged from. Once they exit the hovo, Jonah throws a knife at one of them and gets a quick introduction to body armor. Stiletta, however, ends up kicking on of the thugs in and unarmored organ, Jonah takes the cue and decks the one guarding him. Jonah and Stiletta quickly get the third thug out of the hovo and leave all three of them as they take off for parts unknown.

Meanwhile in 2042, Borsten is back in the top secret facility that he used to work in and he is sneaking down the microbial agent wing, hoping to obtain something that will allow him to overthrow the Conglomerate and rule the future. He enters a room but is stopped by another scientist who demands to see his credentials. Borsten creds only allow him into chronal studies and the scientist attempts to stop Borsten. Borsten pulls a pistol and demands a small beaker from the room.

The scientists are confused because he is asking for a totally harmless, though highly specialized, microbe. Suddenly Borsten has a seizure and realizes that he will die unless he gets back to the future and the Needle. He presses a button on his watch and returns to the future.

Speaking of which, back in the Needle in 2050, one of Borsten's scientists is getting ready for the boss's return and pulls up a file that he knows Borsten will want to see when he gets back. There is a sudden flash in the lab and Borsten returns and collapses to the floor. The scientist rushes to Borsten's aid and quickly drags him down the hall to the rejuvenation bubble. This leaves one lone technician in the room and he quickly pulls out a floppy disk, inserts it into the main computer and copies the secret file for the Conglomerate.

Meanwhile, Stiletta and Hex make a landing near a diner to grab some grub. Stiletta finds Hex's irons in the back of the hovo, guessing that the Conglomerate goons had abushed the hill scum to find out which direction she and Hex had gone. At the diner, Stiletta is amazed to find that diner for two will cost forty soames but Jonah politely persuades the owner (by placing his six-gun into the owner's mouth) that they are allowed to have a huge discount.

During dinner, Stiletta says that she and Hex should team-up since they are both survivors. Jonah replies that all he wants to do is get back home so Stiletta says that she can help Hex crash the Needle, but first they'll have to get some big equipment and to do THAT, they'll need to lay their hands on some soames, a LOT of soames.

Elsewhere, in a home owned by the Conglomerate, two of its members are looking at a photo taken from Barnaby Blossom's hovo, showing Blossom falling through the sun roof and Jonah in the hovo. They recognize Hex as the gunfighter that Borsten was supposed to have at a show and they draw the conclusion that Jonah Hex is working for Borsten by hijacking the Conglomerates lotus drug shipments. They decide to put an end to all of this foolishness by calling in a guy referred to as "Chain"

We cut to an desolate alleyway where a young scrawny nerdy looking guy carrying a bag of groceries  is in immediate danger of getting mugged by a gang of goons. The kid takes off running and manages to get into a small shack, all the while screaming for his big brother, Gowan. The goons run up to the door and easily kick it in and storm into the dark shack. The young kid can be heard sobbing and another voice rises up in the darkness, telling Marty (the kid) that he doesn't have to be afraid. We suddenly see one of the goons through clear through a wall, we hear another goon begging for mercy followed by a loud cracking sound and the other two goons make it out the door, running like hell.

A television screen lights up the shack as we see a member of the Conglomerate ask to talk to Chain. Chain (aka Gowan) drops a dead goon to the floor and takes the call. The Conglomerate says they need him immediately but Chain replies that he can be there in an hour, right after he makes Marty some hot chocolate and tucks him safely into bed.

Later that night we find Jonah Hex and Stiletta on a cliff edge overlooking a Conglomerate sub-treasury compound (aka soames storehouse). They are surveying the compound with high powered binoculars and Stiletta aks Jonah if he has any ideas on how to get in. Jonah replies "Yup."

Later, at a guard tower in the compound a hovo suddenly swoops from the sky towards the guards. They react instantly, shooting it from the sky and it crashes into the compound in a huge explosion. This throws the compound into red alert and they start evacuating the armored cars (soames wagons). One of the drivers jumps into his truck only to find Jonah Hex inside pointing a pistol at his head.

Jonah and Stiletta end up hijacking the truck and breaking away from the convoy that is headed to safety. Meanwhile, Chain, in his own hovo, picks up the radio chatter about the runaway truck and realizes that Jonah Hex is behind the theft.

In the truck, Stiletta is driving, and Jonah says he sure hopes they get away with this. Just then there is a huge THUD on the roof when Chain lands on the truck. Suddenly there is a rending of metal as a chainsaw cuts down through the roof. Jonah grabs his pistol and pumps a couple of slugs into Chain with no effect. Stiletta exclaims that he must have titanium body armor and as Chain takes another swipe through the truck cab, she cuts the wheel hard to the left and throws the killer off.

Chain, however is equipped with boot jets and doesn't splat on the ground. Sadly, Stiletta looses control of the truck and smashes into a hovo repair/junk yard. They both jump out of the wrecked truck as Chain smashes through it in pursuit. Stiletta is hit in the head with flying debris and falls to the ground. Jonah fires a few more times at Chain and then picks up a huge chunk of pipe, which Chain easily cuts through.

Jonah decides to hotfoot it out of there until he can hatch a better plan. This leads to a game of cat and mouse in the junkyard until Jonah is able to topple a huge stack of wrecked hovos on top of Chain. To Jonah's dismay, Chain is able to cut his way out of the mess.

. Jonah resorts to his fists, sadly to no effect, and Chain calmly picks Jonah up and starts choking the life from him. Stiletta has regained consciousness and shouts for Jonah to hit the button on the machine next to him. Jonah lashes out and hits the button, turning on the electro magnet/compactor. This picks Chain up, drops him into the compactor and smashes him. Chain barely survives but is out of the fight.

Jonah picks up Stiletta and they start to leave, only to find themselves completely surrounded by the Conglomerate!!

Statistics for this Issue

Men killed by Jonah - 0
Running total - 447 (428 past, 19 future)
Jonah's Injuries - None
Timeline - Same day as last issue, but we have progressed into that night.

Overall not a bad issue. One thing I do want to cover is the character of Chain. We meet his younger brother (Marty) and then we meet Chain (aka Gowan) . However, we never see the two of them together. When I read this book back in the 80's I always had this feeling that Gowan and Marty were the same person, kinda like Norman Bates and his mom. Why? I don't know unless it was we heard Marty's voice coming from a dark room right before Chain appears. (I might have to ask Mr. Fleisher about this.)

We get more mystery with the Conglomerate, more of Borsten's plans are revealed, Stiletta is getting a little sweet on Jonah. This issue moves the story along nicely, introduces a new character or two and gives us some action to boot. Thumbs up for this one.



Next Issue: Harris breaks out, the creation of soames, the origin of Stiletta, and Jonah rides the rollercoaster!

Hex #4 "Worms"

Hex #4 Dec 1985
"Worms"
Michael Fleisher, story - Ron Wagner and Carlos Garzon, art - Mark Texeira and Klaus Janson, cover

Jonah Hex is in the out of control hovercraft of the late Barnaby Blossom and is heading straight for the side of a mountain. Jonah, being the fine pilot he is, slams headlong into the cliff face.

Meanwhile, three other men in a different craft are tracking Blossom's ship on a radar and are thinking that someone probably hijacked Blossom and his cargo.

Back at the wall of rock, Jonah is lucky enough that his crashed transportation has landed on a ledge and as he works his way out of the burning wreckage, the craft suddenly topples and Jonah is left to climb up teh sheer rock wall all by his lonesome.

We flash back to the jungles of Viet Nam to find Harris running for his life. Suddenly he steps into a trap and is captured by the VC! They take him back to their village and start torturing him, asking questions. Harris only gives up his name, rank, and serial number. However the VC keep demanding to know about the CIA, troop movements, mission details and the location of Jonah Hex!

Then we find out the truth, Harris is drugged and held captive by Dr. Kinglet, head medical lackey of Reinhold Borsten. Kinglet states that Harris's will is so strong that he continues to fight the hypno drugs even to the point of damaging his brain. Borsten, who slowly enters the room, states that Hex needs to be recaptured before Borsten takes his next journey into the past.

Several hours later, we find Jonah Hex stumbling across various canyons, nursing his busted ribs and looking for water. He finally finds a watering hole and as he falls down, scooping up double handfuls of water he hears a voice behind him warning not to drink the water.

It's Stiletta! Jonah pulls his pistol and demands that she stay back since she's some kind of machine that he saw blasted apart. She says that whatever he saw, it wasn't her. She kneels down and fills a canteen with water, stating that she has no idea how Jonah Hex got to be so ignorant, but that in the holocaust of 2045, all open water was contaminated to the point of one taste kills a man. She takes a wafer, splits it into quarters and drops one in the canteen, explaining that it is a soames and that one soames purifies one gallon of water.

Meanwhile, our three airborne friends from before have finally come upon the wreckage of Barnaby Blossom's machine.

By now, Jonah and Stiletta have gotten their canteens filled and are on her motorcycle. Jonah has explained where he is from and how he got stranded. Stiletta isn't surprised since it explains a whole lot about him. She had lost track of Hex after the battle for the water and then heard about a scar-faced guy that hijacked a conglomerate 'hovo'. Just then they are set upon by hill scum! Several men jump from the overhanging cliffs and knock Stiletta and Jonah off the bike. Both are eventually overcome by their attackers and once the hill scum finish robbing them, they decide to kill Hex and Stiletta. Jonah grabs a handful of sand, throws it into the hill scum's eyes, grabs Stiletta and jumps over the edge of the cliff. The hill scum stand atop the cliff, watching the pair slide and tumble to their death.

Our three friends from the Conglomerate have landed beside the wreckage and have retrieved the black box in order to learn what happened to Blossom. What they see leads them to believe that Jonah hijacked Blossom and threw him out the busted sun roof.

We now find Jonah and Stiletta walking across the Washington state desert. Stiletta mentions that Falcon told her about a cave that had clean water in it about twelve miles from where they are. They slowly head for the cave when Stiletta says that there is something that she should tell Hex. She explains that Reinhold Borsten is her father.

Back at the Needle, Borsten is giving a great explanation of the history of he and his daughter. Eight years ago, in 2042 (thus making this 2050), Borsten worked as a national security administration liaison to the top-secret project Cronos, tasked with building a time machine. They were eventually successful and decided to send one of their scientists three years into the future, to 2045. The man vanished and never returned.

Not until much later that is. Somehow, unexplained, one night when Borsten was in the lab, the time machine started up and the co worker that had been sent to 2045 returned. Sadly he was near death, his body ravaged and disfigured from radiation poisoning. With his dying words the man explained about the global nuclear war that wiped out everything, leaving the planet broken almost beyond repair.

Acting quickly, Borsten sent the man's dying body into the far far future (I would love to see his body suddenly appear with no explanation in a Legion of Super Heroes story!!), gathered all the plans and programs needed to restore the planet and then sent himself five years into the future, to 2047. As he vanished, he tossed a hand grenade into the lab, destroying the only working time machine.

To his dismay, by the time Borsten had arrived, the underworld had already started repairing the earth and had formed the Conglomerate, holding complete control over the entire planet because it was they alone who controlled the production of soames. Borsten, however, does have plans to overthrow the Congolmerate and take over control of the earth.

We finally find Jonah and Stiletta walking up to the cave (Let's see, twelve miles at three miles an hour is four hours, but they are injured so let's say six hours later). They rig up a torch and head into the cave and quickly find the pool of clean water. However, they also find...

WORMS!!!!

Jonah uses the torch to fight of the slimy bloodsuckers as Stiletta fills up the canteen. She gets it filled but suddenly one of the worms wraps around her leg. She panics, lunging backwards and falls into Jonah, who accidentally throws the torch into the pool of water.

In the total darkness, Jonah tells her to light a match. She gets one lit and out of the darkness, Jonah hands her his shirt, telling her to light it. Once it starts blazing we see....

They finally get the giant bloodsucking things off of Hex and Jonah cuts the last one in half with his handy knife. They stumble out of the cave with the canteen of water just as we see our three friends from the Conglomerate draw a bead on them from up above..

Statistics for this Issue:

Men killed by Jonah - hmm, we see three hill scum bodies and we know that Stiletta sliced one open so let's say Jonah gets two kills.
Running Total - 447 (428 past, 19 future)
Jonah's Injuries - Broken ribs from the crash and several lost patches of skin from the worms.
Timeline - Can you believe that it is still day number two of Jonah Hex in the future? I think the days must be longer of something! Anyway, we know that we are now in 2050!!

A pretty good issue. We get one aspect of Stiletta resolved, we play catch-up on history thanks to Reinhold "Exposition Machine" Borsten, we learn more of the fate of Stanley Harris, and we have a large villain in the drug dealing Conglomerate. Lots of action, lots of danger. It's some pretty typical 80's sci-fi, but damn, it's Jonah Hex and that carries me a long way. (Note: Please do NOT remind me of this last sentence when we finally get to Shadows West.)

So far in HEX we have a well laid out culture with a strong historical backstory and it is apparent that Fleisher isn't making this up one issue at a time. I'm enjoying it, I really am (and I was back in 1985)

Next Issue: A spy in the needle, Borsten goes back to 2042, Stiletta and Hex plan to rob the Conglomerate, and we meet the number one paid hitman in.... The Seattle Chainsaw Massacre!!!