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Woodson Hex is a fictional character in DC Comics and is specifically featured in the Jonah Hex stories. He is the alcoholic and abusive father of Jonah Hex and husband of Virginia "Ginny" Hex.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Woodson Hex was born in the Old West sometime in the late 18th-early 19th century to unnamed parents. It is implied that he was abused by his father who later on abandoned the family when he grew older whilst his mother most probably died having him or also abandoned him. At some point of time after, he met a woman with the first name Virginia and married her sometime in the early 1830s with the 2 living in Missouri soon after.
Earth One[]
Woodson is first seen in Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #7 which takes place in 1851 where he is seen to physically and verbally abuse a pre-teen Jonah before they leave his house in Missouri and go on the road for the Gold Rush where Woodson hopes to become rich from the money. During the ride, him and Jonah run into a Native tribe along the way and after spending a night with them, Woodson leaves Jonah with the tribe the next morning and continues on the journey to the Gold Rush by himself.
After 12-13 issues of not being present, Woodson returns in Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #20 set sometime in the 1870s where he reunites with his son as a stagecoach he is riding is robbed with the attackers getting murdered by Jonah soon after. Woodson and Jonah, after taking care of the bandits, continue towards the town of Willow Creek, where, after hearing reports of the gang and the fact that they are supposed to go into the same areas again carrying 250,000 dollars in a stagecoach, decide to do it. As the 2 go near the mountains, the gang attacks them and after a shootout, Woodson secretly double-crosses Jonah for the money and runs with the gang after a dynamite explodes. At the gang's campsite at nighttime, Woodson and the other members are ambushed by a still alive Jonah who shoots and kills most of them with the last one killed and shot by Woodson. After the kill, Woodson fakes a death wound and is taken by Jonah to a doctor in town who promises to bury his father's body properly, and after Jonah leaves, wakes up a still alive and healthy Woodson who pays the doctor for his fake funeral before leaving to get gold.
In Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #21, Woodson takes all the 250,000 dollars, goes to a nearby town and gets drunk. However, he is soon cornered by other members of the gang him and Jonah killed earlier lead by their leader Zeke and his henchmen who kidnap Woodson, bring him to their ranch lair and tie him up to a water generator. Later on, Jonah is also captured, tied up and put onto the generator alongside Woodson but the 2 manage to escape it and after a while, they confront and murder all the gang members including Zeke, then go back to Willow Creek and give all the remaining money to the town before Woodson's fake coffin is also blown up with him and Jonah both leaving the town soon after and parting ways as Woodson continues on his quest for gold.
Woodson then appears in a flashback to Jonah's childhood in Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #27 set in 1849, where he physically and verbally abuses Jonah for not working and helping around the house and also orders his son to do his chores as he is busy with his bootlegging work before he leaves the house and goes to town. Later on, he returns to the house to find out that Jonah has not helped around or cleaned it at all, which causes him to once again beat his son and send him to his room whilst drinking alcohol at the same time.
Woodson reappears in present day 1870s again in Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #34 where he is now a corrupt sheriff and ruler of a ghost town and the ringleader of a corrupt gang named the Boley Boys. He arrests Jonah for false charges framed by the Boleys however his son escapes the prison soon after and catches him and the gang robbing a train before he kills all of them and spares Woodson alive, giving him punishment by having him revoke his titles and instead making him be Santa Claus for the children of the town.
In an 1850 flashback in Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #51, Woodson forces a young Jonah to fight in a boxing match with a boxer at a carnival fair so that he could get some money from his son possibly winning the fight. However, after Jonah loses, Woodson beats him and calls him a spineless coward in a fit of rage and loss of money.
In Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #53, a younger Woodson appears in a brief hallucination to Jonah before he forgets him. In Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #57, Woodson appears in another flashback to 1848 where he insults Jonah over him continuously fighting with other boys before telling his wife Ginny that he is going to make some other bootlegging deals and then leaving the house to do so. His wife, unbeknownst to him later on, leaves and abandons the family to go away and live with a kindly visiting salesman whilst Jonah stays behind.
In DC Special Series #21, Woodson appears in another flashback, this time to Thanksgiving 1844 where he finds out that Jonah has taken a pet raccoon and later on, kills it and tells Ginny the whole story. Soon after, at the dinner table, Woodson and Ginny reveal to Jonah that Woodson killed the raccoon which causes the shocked and enraged Jonah to proclaim that he hates Woodson, causing him to then knock down Jonah, tell him to not make friends with animals, and send him up to his room.
New Earth[]
After the Crisis of Infinite Earths event, a now retconned Woodson once again appears in flashbacks in Hex Vol. 1 #18 which recount the boxing match Jonah had in 1850 at the carnival fair and the raccoon that Woodson killed in Thanksgiving 1844 which had caused an argument between him and Jonah.
Woodson appears in another flashback detailing Jonah's backstory in Secret Origins Vol. 2 #21 set during Jonah's 10th birthday in 1848 where he gives his son a gun as a birthday present. Later on, Ginny returns from town and it is revealed here that Woodson also beats his wife as he beats up Ginny thinking that she is cheating on him. Jonah comes to the rescue soon, however, this causes Woodson to beat him up as well.
In the 2006 run of Jonah Hex comics, Woodson appears in Jonah Hex Vol. 2 #14 set in 1851 before he left Jonah with the natives. It is here where we get a reimagining of Jonah Hex Vol. 1 #7 in which Woodson and Jonah get into an argument, causing Woodson to trap Jonah in an outhouse and wait outside. That night, Jonah bursts out of the outhouse and points a gun at Woodson but doesn't kill him, causing him to take the gun from his son and get ready on their journey to the Gold Rush where in route, Woodson leaves Jonah with the Native tribe and continues on by himself.
28 issues later in a flashback to 1846 in Jonah Hex Vol. 2 #42, Woodson teaches Jonah on how bullets travel by hitting his hands with a stick to also show him the feel of bullets hitting someone's body. Ginny tells him off for always being hard on their son however Woodson responds by insulting her before taking Jonah outside and making him hold some bolts with both of his hands, telling him to stay like that the whole night to get the feel of how quiet he has to be in a shootout. It is also revealed in lines of dialogue from Woodson here, that his father also abused him as well and on the day he died, Woodson met Ginny after which he then falls asleep whilst Jonah stays still with the bolts. The next day, Woodson notices Jonah holding the bolts again and realizes soon that he wasn't holding them for the whole night as he was supposed to, which causes him to take the bolts off his son and beat him and then go into the house and beat Ginny for interfering in his and Jonah's teachings. Later on, Woodson takes Jonah to town and shows him all the corruption and greed in it before he goes into a saloon to bootleg his latest shipment of alcohol whilst leaving Jonah outside. After the alcohol has been bootlegged, Woodson returns back to Jonah to find out that he has been badly beaten up. Realizing that some street boys did so, he beats all of them up before taking Jonah home where he forces him to practice labour as a punishment for not beating up all the boys and then sends him up to his room to sleep at nighttime whilst he stays down drinking. In the present day 1870s, an aging Woodson appears once again, witnessing an adult Jonah get revenge on and kill the now adult gang that beat him up in 1846 before he then witnesses his son walk off and comments on how tough he has become.
In Jonah Hex Vol. 2 #63, Woodson appears in an 1842 flashback wherein him, Jonah and Ginny find out from Hank Chesterfield that his son and Jonah's best friend Aaron was killed by a mysterious man. Hank and a posse then show a suspect to Jonah as he was the one who last saw Aaron and it is revealed here that the suspect was the one who killed him, causing Woodson, Hank and the posse to murder the man and gouge his eyes out. Later on, at Aaron's funeral, Woodson explains to Jonah what he, Hank and the posse did to the suspect.