Jonah Hex is the latest in a tradition of loud, explosive-strewn blockbusters adapted from graphic novels. And the title character, played by Josh Brolin, is part of another rich Hollywood history: the Horrible Facial Disfigurement. To be a part of this legacy, the character must go beyond the garden-variety scar or pockmark. No, he or she must greet enemies and nemeses with the kind of horrifically twisted visage that causes cringing, fear, and/or revilement. (And the scars must be the result of a violent incident, not from a congenital deformity.) Herewith, a look back at the movies’ most mangled mugs.
Scar: A long deep slit, which helpfully skips right over Kurt Russell’s baby blues. Cause: Unexplained, but presumably has some relation to the reason they call him Stuntman Mike. Effect: Unclear if the scar is related to a specific incident that pushed Mike to go around killing defenseless women with his car, or if he was already doing that anyway. 
Scar: A gash running diagonally down his face. Cause: Never addressed on the show, but in real life is the result of a bar fight actor Michael Kenneth Williams got into on his 25th birthday. Effect: For Omar, it makes a powerful unspoken introduction: “Greetings, I am Omar Little, a gun-toting renegade, and as you can tell by my face, I clearly have no fear of violence.” As for Williams, he says the scar helped him land roles early on. 
Scar: Concentric circles on his left cheek that evoke thoughts of making pancakes. Cause: Gardocki (David Rees Snell) burns the Mexican gang leader Armadillo by pressing his face to a stove burner, and, in a real what-goes-around-comes-around-type moment, Armadillo retaliates by doing the exact same thing to Gardocki. Effect: Temporarily leaves the strike team; grows a cool beard. 
Scar: Mostly just makes her right eye look really squinty. Cause: Burned as a child in a fire started accidentally by her drunk father. Effect: Becomes a blackmailer; hates everybody; gets called a “scarfaced she-devil.” Also, thanks to a skilled plastic surgeon, eventually ends up looking like Joan Crawford, making for the rare facial rehabilitation on this list. 
Scar: Burn scars. Cause: Mel Gibson is teacher Justin McLeod, whose alleged facelessness is due to a car accident that also killed one of his students. Effect: Becomes a recluse, but whether that’s because of the misinformed rumors of pedophilia that plague him or his face (contrary to the nickname, he does have one) is unclear. 
Scar: Various nips and tucks, although not enough to take the crazy glean out of Tom Cruise’s eyes. Cause: Cameron Diaz drives them both over a bridge. Effect: Enters “lucid dream” for 150 years where, for awhile, he believes he is successfully sleeping with Penélope Cruz. 
Scar: Veiny face tattoos, random metal bits, Sanskrit-like eyebrows. Cause: Rich popular kid Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) acts like a jerk and gets turned into a complicatedly disfigured person by teen witch Mary-Kate Olsen. Effect: Builds greenhouse, falls in love with Zac Efron’s girlfriend, finds inner beauty (presumably). 
Scar: There are cranial issues, but most prominent is the damage to the left cheek, which gives one the impression the Sith Lord hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a while. Cause: After turning to the dark side, engages in a duel with his old pal Obi-Wan Kenobi during which he’s burned by lava. Effect: Had already gone evil, so the effect is mostly cosmetic, especially because he keeps it under wraps with the giant helmet and the heavy-breathing apparatus. 
Scar: Smiles! Cause: In Tim Burton’s Batman, Jack Nicholson’s Joker was goon Jack Napier, whose face was distorted when he fell into a vat of chemicals during a shootout with Batman at the Axis Chemical plant. In The Dark Knight, however, Heath Ledger’s Joker famously tells conflicting origin stories for his scars. First, that his alcoholic abusive father inflicted them; second, that he did it to himself to console his wife after she was similarly slashed because of gambling debts. Effect: Napier’s incident clearly spurred him to become a criminal mastermind. Ledger’s Joker was likely insane all along, he just didn’t have the appropriate visual aid. 
Scar: Self-explanatory. Cause: In Batman Returns, Tommy Lee Jones’s District Attorney Harvey Dent had acid splashed in his face during one of his high-profile prosecutions (a well-placed manila folder explains the division). In The Dark Knight, the Joker ties up Aaron Eckhart’s Dent in an abandoned warehouse with a bunch of tubs of gasoline, some of which drenches half his face and, eventually, blows him up. Effect: In both cases, ruining half a face creates two times the crazy. A good deal, really. Though that kind of criminal genius usually comes up with a better, less literal nickname. 
Scar: Most notable for a flap of skin joining his lips, making chewing with the right side of his face fairly messy. Cause: A combination of a fire and a branding iron wielded by archenemy Quentin Turnbull, played by John Malkovich. (For the purists: The comic has a different backstory involving a “Mark of the Demon,” applied by the Native American tribe Hex once called his family.) Effect: Seeks justice on Turnbull in the name of the U.S. military; hangs out with Megan Fox. 
Scar: Puffy-nightmare-clown-type look. Cause: Angel Face (Jared Leto) gets the holy hell beaten out of him during a routine fight-club match with Edward Norton’s nameless narrator. Why’d he do it? “I wanted to destroy something beautiful.” Effect: Showing impressive dedication, Angel Face sticks with Project Mayhem. Later on, though, is a bit understandably cold toward Norton’s character. 
Scar: Probably what it would look like if a dog ate half of Frank Langella’s face. Cause: Struck by lightning. Effect: Helps him in his job: It really makes Steward look like the kind of guy who would show up randomly at your doorstep offering a million dollars if you press a button that magically kills someone. 
Scar: Like someone slowly peeled the skin off his face entirely. The look works for him, though. Cause: Burned to death (well, “undeath”) by the parents of Springwood in his own boiler room after being acquitted on murder charges owing to a technicality. Effect: He was already killing children, so no big leap there. But now he can do it in their sleep, and the ghoulishly striated face really helps underline the “nightmare” theme. 15 Facial Disfigurements of the MoviesncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWloaWdga3ynrcKimKWXlJ7Ap7XGrqmepZWjwaC%2Fy6KbnquYpMRvtNOmow%3D%3D