All Star Western #9

For the first time since the launch of this book I find myself slightly disappointed, the story line of Hex aided by Arkham, Nighthawk and Cinnamon as they take on the group know as the August 7 was rushed through in 6 pages.  This is a story that has had a 2 issue build up to it and then  was finished far too quickly for my liking, and all for what felt like a bolted on Night of the Owls story tie-in of sorts.

At the start of the story Hex stops the sinking of a boat full of immigrants by killing the man who is delivering the explosives to the ship, Nighthawk and Cinnamon take out the rest of the 7 which includes ZC Branke rather quickly. Now given that we have seen ZC on separate occasions go toe to toe with both Hex and a man mountain of a man, both of whom she got the better of it seemed unlikely that Nighthawk would be able to dispatch her quite so quickly. However, I don’t think this is the last we have heard of the 7 and personally I hope not, as the characters provided an interesting storyline that could be easily expanded upon in future issues.

We are then quickly into the Night of Owls story line where Hex and Arkham encounter a Talon who kills Thurston Moody the man Hex originally came to New Orleans looking for.

Three weeks later and we switch back to Gotham where a group of card players in a gentleman club come face to face with Tallulah Black, Miss Black is unhappy with one of the card players who she is claiming stole her families land. Amongst the group of card players is a certain Mr Wayne, who previous to Tallulah’s entrance had been advocating the good they could all do for the people of Gotham.

Now I’m becoming a little jaded reading about the various Wayne’s throughout Gotham’s history, not that I’m not interested in them its just that they all cant be on the side of good. For once I would like to read about the Wayne that the rest of the family don’t talk about, we all have someone like that in our history so come on DC lets see some of the Wayne’s shady past.

Back to the story and Tallulah ends up tangling with a costumed body guard, and ends up been thrown out of a window into the street right where Hex and Arkham are standing. Hex’s comments to Tallulah as she’s laid in the street show that there is a history between them, which I am happy about as I was unsure of their history after the re-boot.

The artwork is as good as its always been and the Owls story isn’t bad, I just think its a bit of a sales gimmick to tie this book into the current Owls story line. I know that some will argue it adds a sense of depth and history to the owls showing that they have always been in Gotham, but this has been established in the Bat books so do we need to do it in this book also.

The appearance of Tallulah was a pleasant surprise and I am hoping that she teams up with Hex for a while, as the partnership between him and Arkham has just about ran its course.

The Nighthawk & Cinnamon back up story finishes up nicely, and over the last 3 issues I have seen enough of these two characters to hook me in. I hope we will see more of them either