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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 27, 2021 15:16:28 GMT -5
Great news, MWGallaher! It has been a fine ride and I look forward to a few more stops along the way. I had a thought as you were mentioning some of those 70s revivals. Might some of the Western titles have featured team-ups with real-life characters? I'm thinking Wyatt Earp in particular because he had a Marvel/Atlas title, the James Brothers, and similar historical figures. Don't know if that type of team-up would be stretching your criteria, but I'm betting there are a few of those kinds of stories here or there. (My kibbitzing way of getting to read more of your great reviews.) And, on a completely different subject, I thought of you when I read this obit yesterday of another "hidden figure" from the space program. Wondered if you'd ever heard of him. He must have been quite a splendid man. www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/science/space/george-carruthers-dead.html |
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Post by brutalis on Jan 27, 2021 15:22:55 GMT -5
Gonna have to hunt down these "modern" westerns this year. Don't have any that you wrote up already and they sound good. I do have a few modern reprints of the classic westerns which Marvel toss out occasionally for copyright purposes.
And look forward into you pursuing the other stalwarts of the west. I grab these up whenever I can find cheaply! There is gold in them that hills I tell ya! Just gotta dig deep before your canteen dry"s up in that blazing hot desert sun...
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 27, 2021 20:22:42 GMT -5
I assume that guy doesn't bleed much, when he is hit, with all those tourniquets on his limbs! I assume this is a parody of the Image nonsense. Even Wally Wood would say that's a bit too much! I'm still trying to figure out the mechanics of drawing the pistols strapped across his shoulder blades, especially since those belts across the deltoids look like they would keep him from raising his arms.. I'd just blast him with a shotgun or a rifle, at distance. Must have a hell of an ammo budget..... Well, it's magic. If he's being shot at, I assume he's moving at Flash-level speeds, so extracting an inconveniently placed firearm doesn't take him any more time, to the average observer, than pulling from his holster. And I assume he's never actually hit, either, thanks to his speed. And the ammo budget is the punch line of the story, as he loots the fallen to arm himself for the even larger posse he's expecting next time. I didn't mention it in my summary, but he's also accompanied by a packhorse toting a huge load of arms and ammo. Yeah, it's ridiculous, but it's a fun kind of ridiculous to see this outrageous bit of fantasy merged into a relatively straight Western scenario. |
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 27, 2021 22:09:58 GMT -5
Two-Gun Kid“Tooth & Claw”, 22 pages Dan Slott, writer Eduardo Barreto, artist  Summary:Apparently at this point in time, Two-Gun Kid had been yet again displaced in time, appearing as a supporting character in She-Hulk. It is in the company of the green-skinned heroine that we find him riding a flying, mechanical horse through a dark alley, tracking She-Hulk’s husband. Don’t ask me, I wasn’t reading her comic, and if you’ll forgive me, I’m not going to dive back into another Two-Gun Kid time travel story. So let’s just accept what’s been established, as Two-Gun and Jen hunt down this husband, who must be nearby, judging by the fresh homing dart that Two-Gun finds in the alley. Two-Gun insists on taking the lead, since he’s “been in a spot like this before.” Queue the flashback to the days of the Old West, where we meet… Well, it’s not Two-Gun. It’s a different but familiar-looking cowboy hero, accompanied by his “old friend”, the Indian Nantan, seeking cattle rustlers in a desolate valley. Suddenly they are set upon by talking wolf-men and straight-up wolves, who attack the pair, quickly bringing them down.  Two-Gun comes across them on a following day. The masked white man is rotting in the sun, but his Indian companion is alive. Two-Gun wants to take the wounded Native American to seek medical help, but Nantan insists that first they must bury his dead friend. Deep. Just as he himself must be buried deep, should he perish as Two-Gun carries him on his trusty steed Thunder to the nearest Apache village. The Apaches allow Two-Gun to enter, since he carries their brother Nantan, who appears to bear the “wolf-mark”, an outline of a wolf on his chest. They ask about Nantan’s white companion: did he also bear the mark? Two-Gun doesn’t know, since he buried the poor guy. Two-Gun leaves Nantan with the tribe, planning to pursue his own investigation of the disappearance of cattle in Tombstone, but he’s gonna do it as his lawyer alter ego, Matt Hawk. Matt’s ornery client, Mr. Barker, is accused of being the rustler, by a Mr. Svenson. Matt gets nowhere interviewing Svenson, so he hits the trail for clues, meeting an old man at a cabin who mistakes him for “Kid Clayton”. Clayton was the deceased masked man, and Two-Gun, claiming to be working “with” Clayton, learns that it was Jeb Barker’s men that Clayton and Nantan were pinning the rustling on. How did the old man know it was Barker? From the wolf-shaped “scar” on Jeb Jr.’s chest! Seems that mark had mightily interested Kid Clayton, who left the old man with a silver bullet in gratitude for the information. Adding up the clues, Two-Gun pays a visit to the Apache village, which appears abandoned. But no, they’re all just in a cave, dressed like wolves, dancing around a fire. As Two-Gun enters the cave, he finds a wolf-man tied to the cave wall and fires on him, to absolutely no avail! The Indians explain that this wolf-man is, in fact, Nantan. Their leader, a man in a wolf-head headdress who may or may not be our old friend Red Wolf, explains that there is a wolf-man who haunts this territory, transforming his victims into werewolves.  So what’s so special about the cave? Two-Gun deduces that it must be the vein of silver he sees in the rock, and figures he needs to pick up something to even the odds… What he seeks is buried with Kid Clayton: silver bullets. They weren’t just Clayton’s hero gimmick, after all, they were the only weapon against the supernatural monsters he was pursuing! And right then, the wolf-men descend upon Two-Gun! And he recognizes the voice: it is indeed his client, Barker, not just guilty, but one of the werewolves himself! They weren’t rustling cattle, they were feeding on them! A gun battle ensues, and Two-Gun has to preserve the silver bullets in one of his two guns, using them when it counts. His left-hand fire-arm has regular bullets for the regular wolves acting under the command of Barker’s wolf-men, but the silver ones in his right-hand pistol are just for the lycanthropes. But which is which? Well, he recognizes Jeb Jr.’s gimpy leg, retained even in wolf form. The wolf that gets upset when Two-Gun kills Jr.? Well, that must be another Barker. He’s finally left with two wolves to face. He spends one of his last silver bullets on the one that’s “got the look of an ornery, bloodthirsty animal...the other’s a wolf.” Two-Gun buries the werewolves deep, and he hears the voice of the wolf spirit: “Cho hay ketta nona”. Two-Gun returns to the Apache village the next morning to find Nantan recovered, and learns the meaning of the wolf-god’s message: it’s the curse of the long tomorrow. The spirit has sworn vengeance, even if it takes a hundred years. And with that, we return to the present, where Two-Gun has tracked down She-Hulk’s husband, who I recognize as John Jameson, the Man-Wolf. Fortunately, he’s hung on to the last of his silver bullets, which he pumps into the chest of the attacking Man-Wolf. To be continued in She-Hulk #11! Comments: No, gang, I’m not going to go there, either. We all know the Man-Wolf will survive, and who knows how long Two-Gun will hang around as a supporting character. So I will acknowledge that there are some more modern-day adventures of Two-Gun with Marvel’s superheroes there for the reading, should you be less tired of this than I am. The Western Team-Up of most interest here is not that between Two-Gun Kid and She-Hulk, it’s the one between the late “Kid Clayton” and Two-Gun, even separated by death of one of the parties. “Clayton”, if I may state the obvious, suggests Clayton Moore, the most famous actor to portray the Lone Ranger, with Nantan filling in for Tonto. The werewolf enemies give writer Dan Slott the opportunity to explain the Lone Ranger’s use of silver bullets, as well as a chance to poke fun at the Western characters’ penchant for all having a gimmick:  Can’t complain about Eduardo Barretto’s artwork, and Dan Slott’s scripting makes for a fun read, although the dependence on the ongoing storyline in She-Hulk detracts from the appeal, as the other installments were self-contained. I don’t think that the guy in this story was intended to be Red Wolf. I kept hoping that this would somehow tie in to the Brett Sabre story, which also features animalistic Indians, but I guess it wasn’t meant to. “Tall Tale”, 6 pages Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming, writers Mike Allred, artist Summary: Hugo is a legend of the Old West, a dwarf cowboy hero. Once upon a time, he assisted the ventriloquist Gabbo the Great by dressing up as a wooden dummy to help Gabbo rob the hotels and saloons in the towns they would play. Hugo is answering Gabbo’s telegram, and he’s recruited to rescue Gabbo’s little girl, Annie, who’s been captured by the Indians. Hugo observes the captors’ village and decides his only way in is in disguise, once again, as the ventriloquist’s dummy.  Posing as a literal doll, Hugo makes his way in to rescue Annie, only to find out that “she”, in fact, is a literal doll. She’s not a woman, but Gabbo’s current wooden dummy! But Hugo doesn’t return Annie to his old partner, but instead the two men fight over her, with Hugo victorious, riding off into the sunset with his new love. Comments:
This one brings back a character from Rawhide Kid #47, August 1965 for an unexpected solo adventure. That Larry Lieber tale was jam-packed with ideas, with Hugo and Gabbo a side-story in the story’s primary conflict between Rawhide and a judo-expert villain. And I thought a “Hurricane” solo story was unexpected! Giffen and Loring’s script overflows with language mythologizing the compact cowboy, and I’m pretty confident in concluding that Giffen provided layouts for the highly capable Mike Allred on this story. I’ve got to hand it to the folks behind this series of specials, they gave us plenty of variety, from supernatural tales to flat-out humor.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 28, 2021 7:43:36 GMT -5
Kid Colt and the Arizona Girl“Last Stage to Oblivion”, 22 pages Justin Gray, writer Jimmy Palmiotti, writer/inker Federica Manfredi, penciller Summary:Kid Colt and Arizona Annie are protecting a stage coach from Apache aiming arrows from the canyon cliffs. The Apache fall back as the stage approaches a town surrounded by grisly warning signs: rotting heads on pikes, curiously pointing away from the town, not towards it, as the driver would expect. Seems like a normal enough town, so they drop the grateful passengers and look to procure some horses and kick back in the saloon. Annie thinks she recognizes the barkeep from Dodge City, but he denies knowing her. Colt spots quite a few known outlaws. The bartender points them to the hotel, but warns them that horses are hard to find: the Apache scare away the traders. Annie also notices there are no children in town; something is definitely wrong about this town, but Colt isn’t sensing what Annie is. They’re about to resort to stealing horses, when they’re spotted by a couple of guys who are eager to collect the bounty on their heads. Annie shoots ‘em both dead. Time to check in to their hotel, having scored some horses. Jack’s the man in charge at the Keller Hotel, and Colt and Annie head upstairs for some romancin’. Afterwards, it’s another trip to the saloon, and they pass their victims, laid out in open coffins. Weird...but even weirder, the bar is a “regular menagerie of outlaws and the like”, including Jesse James and the Rawhide Kid?! But this “Rawhide” denies being Colt’s old compadre:  Rawhide draws, and Annie shoots him! Has she killed Marvel’s Number One cowboy hero? Nope...old-time Marvel fans recognize the changes that suddenly occur in the faces of the denizens of Winslow:  Colt and Annie begin their flight from town, and a toss of dynamite and a well-aimed shot from the Arizona Girl brings conflagration to the town. But on the way out, they run into a showdown with one of the green-skins, who transforms from a sheriff into a grizzly bear! Another stick of dynamite goes down the grizzly’s gullet, resulting in a messy explosion. When all’s said and done, Kid Colt and the Arizona girl have destroyed the town and the grizzly, and the Indians greet them on their way out. Normally, they’d be stringing their bows with their guts for having killed so many of their braves on the way into town, but in this case, they’re grateful that our heroes have cleared out this “Black Place of Demons”. They get a gift of a coup stick allowing them passage through Apache territory, and though Annie is offended at the Indians’ remarks on her unfeminine behavior, they take the token, and ride into the sunset. Comments: It’s a surprisingly trivial story, another strange..one might even say “weird” Western. The Skrulls are Marvel’s alien shape-shifters, who have established their own town in the Old West. The “Arizona Girl”, originally known as Arizona Annie, debuted in Wild West #1, Spring 1948, making her one of Marvel’s oldest Western characters, not counting the back-up features in the Golden Age, before Marvel was publishing comics devoted entirely to Westerns. She appeared in the first four issues of that series (which added - ern at the end of the title as of issue 3), as well as in backups for Tex Morgan #3-4, Tex Taylor #3, and Two-Gun Kid #5, a total of 8 stories published over less than a year’s span. While there were some other Western back-up features among Marvel/Timely/Atlas’s earlier anthology comics, appearing one month after their first dedicated Westerns ( Annie Oakley and T wo-Gun Kid), Arizona Annie stands as one of the first in the Western corner of the Marvel Universe.  There wasn’t much of a point in crafting a new version at this point, but it’s kind of neat that they had one of Colt’s contemporaries from the early days share this special with him. Always depicted as a brash and self-confident woman, this issues characterizes her as cruder, more informal in her language and grammar, and more overtly sexual than her earliest appearances, shown here as Kid Colt’s lover, with the implication that their relationship was more than a one-time fling. But I find the depiction respectful enough to the spirit of the original feature. “The Philadelphia Filly”, 8 pages Jim McCann, writer David Antoine Williams, artist Summary: A red-haired gambler is in a high-stakes poker game on board a train. His opponent offers up the deed to his ranch, and then is distracted by the arrival of a beautiful woman. He recognizes her by her reputation as “The Philadelphia Filly”, who’s known for the “things she can do ta a man, ‘specially if he’s caught breaking the law.” “Red” “sees him” and raises the pot, but his opponent has nothing left to match the stakes. Red suggests “Way I see it, all you got left...is yer name.” At this point, the Filly puts the game to a halt, revealing “Red” as a card cheat, with an ace up his sleeve.  The opposing gambler is confused, as the Fill tells the card cheat to run. She topples the table before the gambler can shoot the cheat, and they both flee through the connected train cars. As they run, “Red” introduces himself as “Spender”. He’d lost his real name at a hand of cards and was hoping to win a new one!? The idea baffles the Filly, but Spender explains that gamblers can and will bet just about anything. The Filly explains that the gambler and his men knew that he was cheating, planned to let him win and them murder him in his hotel room as he slept at the next stop. “So, ya couldn’t’a saved me in town?! Why’d ya hafta stop the game?” “You were cheating. That’s...rude.” Spender has a good laugh over this as they reach the roof of the car. The Filly pushes him off the train on a mail-drop post while she dives safely into a bale of hay as the gambler shakes his fist from the caboose as the train pulls away. They’re safe, he’s lost the opportunity for a ranch and a new name. “You said winning was the hard part, Mr. Spender...I guess you’ll just have to try harder next time.” Comments: Hunh? I think I’d have preferred getting a fresh look at an established Western star from Marvel’s extensive catalog of characters, but instead we get a new feature destined to go nowhere, as must have been clearly apparent to the creators. There’s not much to go on here: The Philadelphia Filly is a quirky, gorgeous woman with a curious approach to propriety and abiding by the law, and Spender is a habitual gambler who’s lost everything, including his name. Together, they’re… ...what? Beats me. A new Western Team-Up, partners in, uh, gambling and crime prevention, I guess? Amusing, but even less substantial than the lead story. Nicely drawn, though. I always liked the art of David Antoine Williams, which I first noticed in DC’s !mpact Comics series, The Jaguar, one of my favorites in that imprint.
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Post by berkley on Jan 28, 2021 9:26:11 GMT -5
I fully expect "Peter Grimm the blacksmith, the worse woman-hater in the West" eventually to be revealed by some continuity-obsessed writer to be Ben Grimm's great-great-grandfather. (Add some more "greats", if we're counting from 2020 instead of 1970)
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Post by james on Jan 28, 2021 10:02:36 GMT -5
This is the closest I ever got to reading a Western.  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 28, 2021 12:28:54 GMT -5
More gold in them thar hills, MWGallaher! Love the Lone Ranger homage. Seems to have been done with much knowledge and affection. But for the supernatural element, which does not stretch things too far, everything makes sense and works nicely. The name "Nantan" even echoes the rhythm and sound of "Tonto," with the use of just three letters in each name. BTW, "Barker"is a clever name for the werewolves. And from what you wrote and showed here, I'd say that even a casual Marvel fan would have caught the allusions to Red Wolf. Maybe they just wanted to keep readers a tad unsure? Or felt that it would be overkill to make it any more obvious? Eduardo Barretto is one of the untalked-about excellent comic artists. I like this art here just fine, far more than what you showed us in the "Blaze of Glory" stuff. The Hugo story is the perfect kind of nostalgia/ retcon/pastiche -- whatever you want to call it. A minor character updated believably to tell a good story. Though hardly as dark, it made me think of the most haunting chapter of the Coen Brothers' take on Westerns, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." It features Liam Neeson. Won't say any more in case folks don't know it. The Skrulls in the Old West? Yeah, okay as a one-shot. But hadn't the Skrulls by this time been mined to death? No idea either what that back-up strip was about. I don't think I dislike it, but it seemed as if there were too many tropes, themes, quirks and shout-outs tossed into one little story. |
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Post by brutalis on Jan 28, 2021 13:46:54 GMT -5
Skrulls are the defacto go to alien for Marvel. The traditional little green men combined with shape shifting can be or look like anyone makes for an easy use in ANY story a writer can come up with.
Kind of cool that Kid Colt met Skrulls and an Alien that looks like a Totem Pole. Puts him in a spot in history all his own when compared with Two Gun Gun Kid's future time traveling.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 28, 2021 23:02:30 GMT -5
Skrulls became the continuity fix for anything at Marvel, since nobody had any imagination by that time.
Soon as I saw Nantan, it kept going through my head...Nantan Lupan...then I remembered, Gen George Crook, who built his reputation fighting the Sioux and Apache and chased after Geronimo. I kept hearing Gene Hackman, who played him, in Walter Hill's Geronimo, An American Legend, with Wes Studi as Geronimo and Matt Damon as Britton Davis (and Jason Patric and Charles Gates). Five will get you ten that is where Slott heard the name.
I read the first batch of Slott's She Hulk, which was pretty fun; but, didn't keep up with it. I have it in digital, but haven't read the whole thing. It was pretty good; kind of a superhero LA Law, with Jennifer Walters working for the law firm Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg and Holliway. Holliway was a character in the series, his senior partners are rather obvious.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 28, 2021 23:16:58 GMT -5
Skrulls became the continuity fix for anything at Marvel, since nobody had any imagination by that time. Soon as I saw Nantan, it kept going through my head...Nantan Lupan...then I remembered, Gen George Crook, who built his reputation fighting the Sioux and Apache and chased after Geronimo. I kept hearing Gene Hackman, who played him, in Walter Hill's Geronimo, An American Legend, with Wes Studi as Geronimo and Matt Damon as Britton Davis (and Jason Patric and Charles Gates). Five will get you ten that is where Slott heard the name. I read the first batch of Slott's She Hulk, which was pretty fun; but, didn't keep up with it. I have it in digital, but haven't read the whole thing. It was pretty good; kind of a superhero LA Law, with Jennifer Walters working for the law firm Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg and Holliway. Holliway was a character in the series, his senior partners are rather obvious. Good catch, codystarbuck ! I wasn't familiar with "Nantan Lupan", the Apache's nickname for their nemesis General Crook. I see that "Nantan Lupan" which meant "Chief Wolf", which is surely not unintentional on Slott's part. Further online research notes that while "Nantan" does mean "Chief" in the Apache language, the "Lupan" part is probably a derivative of Spanish, and is not Apache for "wolf"--it would be extremely unlikely that Apache would have a word for "wolf" so similar to the Latin one. |
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Post by berkley on Jan 29, 2021 0:15:13 GMT -5
Western Gunfighters #1, August, 1970  “The Coming of Gunhawk”, 10 pages Stan Lee, Editor Jerry Siegel, Writer Werner Roth, Artist Sal Buscema, Inker The initial installment of Gunhawk’s feature in this series opens with a striking splash, a pin-up style drawing with powerfully-rendered title lettering beneath a shot that establishes the lead’s look, in a simple black outfit with a yellow tie knotted in a thin bow, a pair of pistols in his hands and the traditional low-slung holsters fastened to his thighs. He’s dark-haired and sports a prominent scar down his right cheek.  The story proper begins with Gunhawk entering the town of Brimstone on horseback, where the townspeople freeze at his grim glare. His reputation has preceded him. The next morning, he receives callers at his hotel room: the law-abiding of Brimstone have collected funds and want to hire him to take out the “sheriff”, an outlaw named Luke Tuttle who has recently murdered the real sheriff and assumed his star and authority. Gunhawk negotiates a hike in his charges, from $200 to $300, and heads to the saloon, where he easily disarms Tuttle and brings him to the jail. To the townsfolks’ obvious discomfort, Gunhawk plans to stick around rather than take off to spend his bounty in the big city. Seems there’s more employment opportunities for Gunhawk in Brimstone, as Boss Scragg’s men try to hire him to extract the location of a secret gold mine from geezer Jeb Hawkins, who keeps the location secret between himself and his daughter Daisy. Gunhawk invites the potential employers to step outside where, instead of starting on the job, Gunhawk beats the tar outta the polecats and sends ‘em on their way back to Scragg, who has confirmed Gunhawk’s previous impression that he was a “low-down snake!” Scragg has alternate plans, plans which Gunhawk, secreted on the roof above Scragg’s window, overhears. Gunhawk now begins keeping an eye on Hawkins and Daisy, who are drinking it up in the saloon, teasing the other drinkers as to the location of his mine. When they become aggressively insistent, Gunhawk steps in, but Daisy is more than capable of mounting a defense of her Pa. None of which will prevent Scragg’s men from tailing the father and daughter when they leave to return to their mine. By the next morning, the Hawkins think they are eluding their pursuers, having led their horsed down a stream to stony ground where they won’t leave tracks. But one person has managed to follow, namely Gunhawk, who got ahead of them on the trail. When the Hawkins arrive at the mine, Daisy discovers that a carrier pigeon has been planted in their supplies, and its mate is circling above them. Scragg and company have outwitted them, with the bird providing a clear marker of the Hawkins’ current location! Scragg is playing for keeps—when the Hawkins take refuge in the mine, from where they can hold off attackers, Scraggs prepares to dynamite the opening, figuring to dig it back open after the prospecting family expires from suffocation! Pa and Daisy manage to keep them away from the mine entrance with gunfire until darkness falls. Then it’s time for Gunhawk to advance on them, but Daisy’s doing just the same! With her as hostage, Scragg grabs the young woman to use as a human shield, even as Gunhawk mows down the others of the gang. Scragg’s got a bead on Gunhawk, but Daisy makes some unexpected moves with a stomping foot and an elbow to Scragg’s ribs, causing him to miss Gunhawk and wound one of his own men. Gunhawk manages to shoot the heels off of Scragg’s boots, and the Hawkins are safe. But not grateful enough to pay the man Hawkins knows to be a hired gun. Gunhawk had no intention of charging them one red cent, but Pa still advises his daughter that a hired gun is as low as a man can get. Scragg’s men are all at worst wounded, and Gunhawk marches them off. Unfortunately, the location of their secret mine is about to be common knowledge. Scragg’s thoughts reveal an inauthentic expression of regret: “Sometime only the damned…like me…can understand…and implacably hate…nobility like his…that might have been mine—if--I hadn’t gone wrong!” Siegel closes the story with a summary of the feature’s premise: Gunhawk is a “man willing to fight alone— though every hand be turned against him—so that the spark of goodness which separates man from beast—will live!" Comments Why am I reviewing the opening installment of a solo feature in the Western Team-Ups thread? Well, we need to get acquainted with this newcomer to Marvel’s Western line since he’ll be encountering a couple of other Marvel cowboy stars in the days to come. Western Gunfighters signaled the start of a new wave of Westerns at Marvel, although this lead-off story retains plenty from the earlier approach, particularly with the hoary Comics Code-friendly avoidance of serious violence via the highly unlikely ability to shoot pistols out of his opponents’ hands rather than shooting them outright. It probably stood out on the stands, at 25 cents, it wasn't alone as many of the Marvels of that month went to a larger page count, but WG continued as a giant, even while most other Marvels reverted back to a shorter and cheaper format. At the time, Marvel was also publishing Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt Outlaw, Mighty Marvel Western, Outlaw Kid, Two-Gun Kid and Ringo Kid...seven titles, a significant portion of their early 1970's output that would be expanded with even more reprint series like Gunslinger and The Western Kid, and new series Red Wolf and Gunhawks, before bringing us back to Western Team-Up! Gunhawk’s not a misunderstood and wrongly-proclaimed outlaw, he’s just a representative of the kind of presumably amoral gun for hire that both the good and the bad folk find repugnant. He’s clearly a straight-shooter, aiming only to do good with his guns, but accepting that he’s not likely to be making friends even when he’s performing a good service. Way back at the start of this thread, we noted Marvel’s original “Gunhawk” character, who in the early days of the Atlas Western usurped a series previously headlined by cowboy movie star Whip Wilson (who himself had ousted “Your favorite Western Star” Rex Hart, who had replaced marvels early creation Blaze Carson, “the Fighting Sheriff”, later known as “outlaw buster”!). Somebody at Marvel was quite taken with the “Gunhawk” monicker, since this guy would be followed up almost immediately with the unrelated Gunhawks series. I’m especially impressed with the art team of Werner Roth and Sal Buscema here! Roth seems way more at home here than he was on X-Men, and Sal B. does a fine job on the inks. Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel does a creditable job here in his brief tenure at Marvel, with a story that, while it hews reasonably close to the familiar Marvel approach to Westerns, has a unique enough vibe to feel like something at least a little special. As for Gunhawk himself, I’m a sucker for the genuine mystery-men, who swoop into a story with ambiguous motivations and no clues to their past. And it’s refreshing that for once, the character’s not an outlaw, but instead has an aura of ambiguity that makes him feel a little more threatening than the usual unjustly-accused “outlaws” who always demonstrated their purity. Siegel and Roth and Buscema do nothing to paint this guy as anything but an ice-cold operator, with limited dialog, minimal expressiveness beyond a sneer, and, in surprising anticipation of trends that would take hold in comics years later, no thought balloons revealing his inner monologues! With the sanitized violence, Gunhawk doesn’t hold up to the new breed of Western star taking hold in the cinema of the era, but in attitude, he’s in his era. Coming Attractions: Western Gunfighters #1 included two more brand-new feature debuts, “Tales of Fort Rango” and “The Renegades”, as well as the return of Ghost Rider, which will present at least one story that was originally prepared for his solo series, before it was cancelled, a familiar turn of events in the territory we’ve been riding in! We’ll be looking at all four of these new features, as they will all prove relevant in our further consideration of Western Team-Ups at Marvel. I missed this post before somehow, because I was waiting for some of these characters to show up in the thread. This series, though I'm not sure I read this particular issue, must have been my favourite Marvel Western comic because I remember liking three of these characters better than almost any of the other Marvel Western stars apart from possibly the Rawhide Kid: Ghost Rider, the army officer with the Thor-style hair, and especially Gunhawk. I don't recall the Renegades, so either they didn't make as big an impression or they didn't appear in the issues I read.
Maybe you've already covered this, but was there any connection between this Gunhawk and Reno Jones? I don't think I ever saw any of the latter back in the day, or at least the images and covers don't ring a bell with me. |
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 29, 2021 6:28:06 GMT -5
I missed this post before somehow, because I was waiting for some of these characters to show up in the thread. This series, though I'm not sure I read this particular issue, must have been my favourite Marvel Western comic because I remember liking three of these characters better than almost any of the other Marvel Western stars apart from possibly the Rawhide Kid: Ghost Rider, the army officer with the Thor-style hair, and especially Gunhawk. I don't recall the Renegades, so either they didn't make as big an impression or they didn't appear in the issues I read.
Maybe you've already covered this, but was there any connection between this Gunhawk and Reno Jones? I don't think I ever saw any of the latter back in the day, or at least the images and covers don't ring a bell with me. No "connection" in the sense that there was any mutual history that led to them being called "gunhawk". In fact, it's only the Man in Black (and not the Black man) who appears to have embraced "Gunhawk" as his nickname. I don't recall seeing the term used for Kid Cassidy or Reno Jones except in passing, in the narrative captions or perhaps an occasional comment by a supporting character in a story here and there. There was a "connection" in that they both ended up at the same place and time in Wonderment, Montana in the climactic scenes of Blaze of Glory, but even there their plotlines were as independent as any two parts of that story could have been, and I don't immediately recall any scenes in which they interacted. |
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 29, 2021 9:35:31 GMT -5
Whoops! I missed one! Before we look at last Marvel Westerns special, here’s a quick look at another instance of time-traveling Avengers meeting up with Marvel’s cowboy heroes: The Mighty Thor #370, August, 1986 “Easy Money”, 23 pages Jim Owsley, writer John Buscema, penciller P. Craig Russell, inker John Workman, letterer Paul Becton, colorist  Cover by John Buscema Summary: Danville, Texas, 1875, and a familiar scene to a fan of Westerns: a cowpoke being ejected from the pane glass window of a saloon. Being run out of town as a card cheat is the cowboy known as Sundance. An old coot suggests a means of making an honest dollar to take a claim check from the Union Pacific Railroad to a man on a white horse in Alberdene. The old man is unwilling to explain why this claim check will earn Sundance $100 from the man with the white horse, but the sinister approach of a bunch of fast-riding horsemen inspires Sundance to scoot out to Alberdene pronto. As he looks back, he sees the horsemen shooting up the saloon, killing everyone in there! The boss arrives, pleased with the successful slaughter but angry at the old coot who betrayed him. The boss looks familiar, reassuring readers of Thor that the printers didn’t accidentally swap in pages from a new Rawhide Kid comic:  After the slaughter, a cowboy arrives to find one survivor, the old coot, who thanks “the All-Father” that he has come, but can only spit out a few important words: “claim check...Union Pacific Railroad...Sundance...Alberdene…” Sundance later arrives in Wilmington, where he stops to find a hand of poker in the saloon but...uh-oh...it’s full of the same guys who shot up Danville! The green-clad “boss” sits Sundance down for a little chat. No, he doesn’t want the claim check, he wants to know why Sundance isn’t in Alberdene yet. He has new instructions: he’s to lead the man on the white horse to the railroad crossing in Buzzard Gulch at high noon, and in return the mystery man will give him not $100, but an enchanted deck of cards, which will charm him against injury and death and never deal him a losing hand. To prove it, he uses the magic deck to heal Sundance’s wounded shoulder, which seals the deal. The next day, Sundance is in Alberdene, waking up at dawn in his hotel room, facing down an uninvited visitor. He shoots...and he misses! Hey, wait, is this the guy with the white horse? Maybe so, but we readers might also recognize him, though he’s looking a bit more grizzled than usual, just like the boss in green was:  Out in Buzzard Gulch, the oncoming train is stopped by a stone monument mysteriously appearing on the tracks, and the mysterious riders appear, presumably to rob the train. They again slaughter without mercy, and the boss searches the train to find the crate he wants, the one marked “0906”. What is it? It’s a decorated box filled with golden apples. The boss cackles with glee and begins to shed his mortal disguise...you guessed it, it’s Loki! So what’s going on? Cowboy Thor fills Sundance in on the myth: to retain their eternal youth, the gods must periodically feast on the golden apples of the goddess Idunn. Otherwise, they grow weak and die. Thor’s brother has stolen the apples with the help of a trusted troll who spirited them away to the Earth’s past, then had a change of heart. Loki’s in charge of the oncoming train, packed with his gang of trolls, and cowboy Thor takes up his hammer to defend himself and Sundance. The battle ensues, and Sundance hightails it with his reward, but has a change of heart and returns to join Thor, pitting six-shooter against troll-teeth, to little effect. He’s carrying two guns, but only has one bullet in the other. He takes aim at Loki, hoping to make it count. He nicks Loki, hurting him (he’s still weakened, having only had one bite of his apple) but also manages to shoot the apple out of his hand. He grabs the apple, tosses it to Thor, who is mobbed by trolls. Was he in time? Of course! Thor is victorious, and disappears, to carry the golden apples back to Asgard. Black Panther 46-47, September-October, 2002 “Saddles Ablaze” Parts 1 and 2, 43 pgs Priest (formerly James Owsley), writer Jorge Lucas, artist Paul Tutrone, letterer Jennifer Schellinger, colorist   Summary: We’re back in Danville, but now the Black Panther and his crew, including Everett K. Ross, Henry Peter Gyrich, and “Looney Tunes Panther” are also there. They travel on to Alberdene; they’ve been using the time-traveling brass frogs from King Solomon’s tomb (thank you, Jack Kirby). Ross is mistaken for our old pal Sundance, and is accused of owing a dangerous-looking owlhoot $400 plus interest. Wait. You know what? I can’t. I can’t do it. I know Priest’s Black Panther run is highly regarded among many fans, but there are too many characters, too many situations that I’m not up on here, too much dialog about ongoing plot points I know nothing about, and I’m only a few pages in and I’m already mad at trying to synopsize story points that aren’t made clear. I mean, Gyrich, Ross, T’Challa, and “the Lynne woman” are bickering on the street when Ross is suddenly assaulted, at which point the Black Panther and the everyone except Ross have inexplicably disappeared from the scene, off in some barn where they are trying to figure out how to save Ross. The artist is using intentional Kirby swipes on every shot of T’Challa, while many of the rest of the characters are drawn in a different style. So let’s make this quick: Sundance himself rescues Ross, his future grandson. In cowboy garb, T’Challa tries to join up with Loki’s crew, but he confronts Loki claiming to be a telepath(?!) who knows Loki’s men are illusions. Loki tries to snowjob the Black Panther, then zaps him, the rest of his crew is unwelcome in a restaurant and...wait, wait, wait...on page 11, the bald black guy with the beard and sunglasses says “T’Challa is my king, Agent Gyrich--sovereign lord of the Wakandas”, but the unshaven black guy that tried to join Loki and claimed to be a telepath says that he is T’Challa, and yet here on page 14, the bald black guy with the beard and sunglasses is also T’Challa?! Is this so-called “Looney Tunes Panther” some alternate reality version of T’Challa (the caption very unhelpfully described him as “Long story.” Thanks so much, Priest.)? But if so, why was the bald black guy with the beard declaring that T’Challa was his king back on page 11? Calm yourself, M.W… The events of that issue of Thor play out, with the artist replicating many of John Buscema’s panels (he’s also using intentional Kirby swipes for most shots of the Black Panther). Stuff happens, Thor doesn’t want to know anything about his future, wants Panther & Co. to return to their own time, and Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, and Two-Gun Kid, none of whom are in their familiar outfits, arrive having been summoned by telegram from a “Black Panther”. In Part 2, more stuff from Sundance’s first appearance with Thor play out. Black Panther rides with the Kids:  Things play out a little differently this time around, with new players in the mix. The two Black Panthers refer to each other as “my lord” and “my king”, so I guess they are alternate versions of T’Challa who recognize each other as their individual sovereigns. I’m starting to figure out that one is the Kirby version from the 70’s, maybe written off as an alternate reality counterpart who has somehow joined in this ongoing storyline. It all ends up in some god realm, probably Asgard but I can’t bring myself to struggle any more with it. The cowboy characters are to be escorted back to their own place and time. Comments:
Sorry about that meltdown, folks. It's been a long time since I've read a mainstream comic that was that disorienting. Maybe if I'd been in on this from the beginning it would have been terrific fun, but this was just a big headache for me. I had to try, though. It's a Marvel Western Team-Up in the same vein as a few that I've already reviewed here, so it qualifies for inclusion, whether I like it or not. And I certainly didn't want to finish the main body of this thread on a sour note, so I had to get it out of the way before the finale. Owsley/Priest's Thor is a done-in-one fill-in, and it's fine enough, although John Buscema's work must have been rough layouts, and P. Craig Russell's finishes were not what I would have expected from an artist known for refinement and elegance. (Reminds me of my favorite coined word, "elegancelessness", a word that is, delightfully, an exemplar of its own meaning). When he chose to revisit the story during his run on T'Challas' book (yes, I intentionally put that apostrophe after the 's', now that I've finally figured out some of what was going on), he had to retell pretty much the entire tale, since few if any of this then-current readers would have read a fill-in issue of a different comic from years earlier. It's kind of neat to see Buscema's panels redrawn, with Lucas doing a better job of inking than Russell did. I got the point of depicting the Kids in more realistic outfits in the grittier updates of later vintage, but I don't get the point of putting them all in completely different outfits in this one. It's a superhero story, let the Kids keep their "costumes" on! But really, the Kids are nothing but window dressing, looking back at it. Irrelevant in an already-crowded cast, which just makes me mad again. Coming Attractions:
I'll finish up with a favorite that will lead us right back to Western Team-Up #1, with the second, and to the best of my knowledge, final appearance in print of the Dakota Kid!I've turned up another Western Team-Up that merits a closer look before we close up shop around here! I'll be postponing the big finish to look at a miniseries that, thanks to the turning of the calendar, qualifies for a full-blown review. Gotta admit, I'm a mite trail-weary after this long ride, but I'll have to brew up some strong coffee, wake myself up and ride on a little further so's we can all get a good look at Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven. Controversial and comedic, but at least it's gonna look good for sure! |
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 30, 2021 12:50:12 GMT -5
Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven #1, August 2010 Writer: Ron Zimmerman Artist: Howard Chaykin Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry Colorist: Edgar Delgado  Cover by John Cassaday Summary: The Rawhide Kid rides into Tombstone, where Marshal Wyatt Earp has posted a “no guns” policy. The crowds in the streets are comedically violent, wielding hammers, hatchets, fists, and anything else but guns, halting when Rawhide looks their way, resuming the instant his back is turned. The Sheriff’s office appears empty, except for one occupied cell, where Rawhide meets his old acquaintance Annie Oakley. Annie wants to clean up before she explains where Wyatt Earp and his brother Morgan have disappeared to, and Rawhide assists her, styling her hair as he’s learned to do in his stay in Paris. Finally, Annie gets to her story: She came to Tombstone looking for her boyfriend, Doc Holliday, but he had left town for Cheyenne. The Earps were extraditing one of Cristo Pike’s men. Pike is someone Rawhide has an ongoing beef with, and Rawhide’s already killed a lot of Pike’s family. But the extradition was a trap, and Pike’s men have thrown the Earps into the Fort Pecos stockade, in a cell with a mean ornery old drunkard. The scene changes to the Earps in their underground cell, where the old man assaults them with a barrage of witty insults, skillfully coercing them into fighting each other, while he swigs his swill from a flask. Above them, Cristo Pike berates his dull-witted aide, eager to make history as the man who hung Wyatt Earp (and his lesser known brother, Morgan). Rawhide talks Annie into joining him in freeing the Earps, promising to convince the unruly creeps on the streets not to harass her while she gathers her horse and gear. As he heads off to send a telegram, his steely glare brings the ongoing mayhem in the street to a halt:  Rawhide stops to sign some autographs for his fans, but one gang of approaching cowboys start hassling Annie, and use the wrong words when they face up to Rawhide’s demand for gentlemanly behavior towards the lady. The gangleader gets punched out, and his boys get the pistols shot out of their hands:  With all of them unarmed, Rawhide mops the floor with them all, and off they ride. Annie’s a bit concerned that Tombstone will run riot without him in town, in the absence of the Earps, but Rawhide’s wire has brought in an acting sheriff who should manage to keep things under control:  Comments: A plot summary does this story even less justice than usual, since it’s a comedic farce, largely dependent on timing, dialog, and some slapstick. This is a very different Rawhide than we’ve seen in any other stories on this Western Team-Up trail, but one familiar to readers who picked up this miniseries' predecessor, the controversial Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather miniseries published under Marvel’s MAX imprint. That one, by writer Zimmerman with art by the legendary John Severin, began this interpretation of the Rawhide Kid as the same highly capable justice-seeking cowboy hero we’ve seen so much, but also as flamboyantly gay. I’ll steer clear of saying whether this is an offensive stereotype or something more positive. It’s good looking comics (as was Severin’s version, of course) and it’s pretty funny stuff, especially the exchanges between the old man and the Earps in their cells. I also got a big kick out of Zimmerman and Chaykin boldly employing the absurd sanitizing trope of shooting the guns of the enemies' hands. Made me laugh out loud, anyway, to see that kiddy-protecting morality ploy used in this adult humor context. The Rawhide Kid is, obviously, a corporate trademark and a fictional character. There is no argument that this interpretation isn’t, in at least some significant respects, contrary to the intent of the character’s creators. But the same could be said of the version we saw in Blaze of Glory. Bottom line is, I’m OK with it, but if this particular twist on a wholesome cowboy hero rubs you the wrong way, well, “different strokes”, as they say. I wasn’t expecting Chaykin’s one-off take on Marvel’s Ghost Rider! Nicely done, both as a startling punch line and as an appealing redesign inspired by Marvel’s biker hero rather than Magazine Enterprises’ Western character.
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