At a time when the United States is actively confronting the ugly legacy of the Civil War and the Confederacy, many are rejecting Confederate images and iconography as a result of their racist connotations and affiliations. However, in comics, there's one character who still wears his past associations with the Confederacy on his sleeve: Jonah Hex.
Created in 1972's All-Star Western #10 by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga, Hex was sold into slavery to the Apache and raised to become an expert warrior, hunter, and marksman with the Native American tribe. Initially a cavalry scout for the U.S. Army, Hex defected and became an officer in the Confederate Army at the onset of the Civil War in 1861. While Hex was lauded for his bravery and formed a close friendship with fellow Confederate soldier Jeb Turnbull, he became increasingly conflicted about the Confederacy's treatment of slaves. Following President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, which freed slaves from Confederate states, Hex surrendered to the Union Army, inadvertently revealing where his old unit was stationed. This resulted in their ambush, the death of Turnbull, and Hex's own shooting at the hands of a cruel Union officer.
Despite rejecting the Confederacy for its stance on slavery, Hex continued to wear his old Confederate uniform for the remainder of his life as a reminder of his mistakes and the lives it cost, as well as his own subsequent promise to seek revenge on the Union officer that led the massacre. This choice has followed Hex through various different adaptations, including the 2010 film starring Josh Brolin and the character's appearances in the Arrowverse, as portrayed by Johnathon Schaech.
Hex's insistence on continuing to wear the Confederate uniform is not only one of the more troublesome, conflicting elements of the character, it also doesn't make a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things. Concerns over romanticizing the Confederacy aside, Hex abandoned the Confederate military when he fully understood the Southern States' commitment to continuing the barbaric practice. Hex having been a slave himself was also part of what influenced him to leave the Confederacy.
Hex really doesn't make much sense as a Lost Causer -- which are defeated Confederates and their subsequent sympathizers who attempted to instill a sense of tragic heroism into their defeat in the Civil War. Not only did Hex realize he was fighting for the wrong side morally, many of his recurring enemies after he became a bounty hunter in the Wild West were former Confederate soldiers themselves -- including the original Gray Ghost and Jeb's father Quentin Turnbull -- attempting to continue the Confederate agenda. For Hex to share the uniform is both out-of-place for the unsentimental gunslinger and something of a double-standard.
Jonah Hex is already a character that literally carries the legacy of his failures and mistakes on him, as seen in his signature facial scar. To have the cowboy still wear his Confederate Army uniform years after the end of the Civil War, an association he did not maintain until the end of the war in the first place, is an odd, outdated decision that needs to be dropped from the character moving forward. Hex can still have his Civil War history, but his continued insistence on wearing his old uniform makes little sense creatively and sends the wrong message culturally.