Whoa, nelly! After two months full of Marvel Omnibus announcements, now it’s time to begin shifting our attention to DC catalog announcements – including new DC Finest Volumes! I collect every one of these comprehensive paperbacks of DC’s pre-Flashpoint history and I was incredibly proud to partner with DC to present the first ever DC Finest Most-Wanted Poll! And, today I’m happy to take a look at what seems to be the final DC Finest volume of 2026: DC Finest Western – Requiem for a Gunfighter.
DC Finest: Western – Requiem for a Gunfighter is a book from the #23 most-demanded era on the 2026 DC Finest Poll, which we voted on as “Western: Jonah Hex (1972 & on) [volumes after The Hangman Never Loses].”
In fact, this is the volume that immediately follows The Hangman Never Loses, which included the first appearances of Jonah Hex.
DC Finest: Western – The Hangman Never Loses was released in March 2026 and collects following contents:
Tomahawk (1950) #130-140 (the final issue of this title); All-Star Western (1970) #2-8 & 10-11; Weird Western Tales (1972) #12-17; material from Super DC Giant (1970) #S-15 (“Stand Proud the Warrior Breed”); and the covers of All-Star Western (1970) #1 & 9 (both of which were all-reprint issues) and Super DC Giant (1970) #S-14 & #S-22
That takes a bit of explaining, which will also help to explain the contents of this new volume.
DC and Marvel both released many Western comics from the 1940s through the 1960s, although the genre was beginning to die off as we reached the start of the Bronze Age in 1970-1972. At DC, the surviving Western title at that time was Tomahawk (1950), which primarily starred Thomas Haukins, a white 18th Century soldier of the French and Indian Wars who later became a frontiersman.
The Hangman Never Loses collects the final two years of bi-monthly issues of Tomahawk (1950). It also collects the newly-launched All-Star Western (1970), which ran alongside those issues. It was an unremarkable title in its first year, until issue #10 – the final issue of 1971, which introduced a new gunslinger named Jonah Hex.
Jonah Hex caught on quickly, and only two issues later the title changed to Weird Western Tales (1972) and Jonah anchored every issue from #12-38 (except for #15). After issue #38 at the end of 1976, Scalphunter becomes the feature character, with Jonah Hex getting his own title in 1977.
That means DC Finest: Western – The Hangman Never Loses is essentially the first Bronze Age volume of DC’s Western comics, about a quarter of which are Jonah Hex stories.
Then, the newly-announced DC Finest Western – Requiem for a Gunfighter is solicited to collect the following (volume years added for clarity):
All the tall tales from Weird Western Tales (1972) #18-43, Jonah Hex (1977) #1-7, and a never-before-reprinted Jonah Hex parody story from The Amazing World of DC Comics (1974) #13.
That means this second Bronze Age volume will collect all of the remainder of Jonah Hex’s run on Weird Western Tales (1972) and then follow him into his own ongoing series while also continuing to collect the original non-reprint stories from Weird Western Tales (1972) #39-43.
That implies that the next few volumes of this line will continue to collect original stories from Weird Western Tales (1972) through its conclusion with issue #70 in May of 1980.
That issue was released the same month as Jonah Hex (1977) #39, which means we’ll be collecting Weird Western Tales (1972) #44-70 alongside Jonah Hex (1977) #8-39. That’s 59 total issues, plus whatever additional anthology Western stories DC includes.
That could be squeezed into two massive DC Finest volumes, or the final few issues of Weird Western Tales (1972) might trickle into a third volume.
Jonah Hex material continues through Jonah Hex (1977) #92 in 1985 – another 2-3 Finest volumes. From there, he is next in Hex (1985) #1-18. Finally, he is in Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo (1993) #1-5, Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such (1995) #1-5, and Jonah Hex: Shadows West (1999) #1-3.
The DC Finest: Western line proved to be a big hit with readers and notched a shockingly high ranking on the first Most-Wanted poll. That’s not a huge shock, since Jonah Hex is a popular niche character – but, I was surprised to hear people also enjoyed the non-Jonah Western tales! Given the positive reception, I suspect DC could continue to release these volumes every 9-10 months.
Do you want to see a Jonah Hex guide on Crushing Krisis? It’s not one of my top priorities, but you could convince me!
And, don’t forget to keep an eye on the DC Finest Tracking Sheet for the contents of every announced DC Finest Volume plus many speculated future volumes.
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