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Post by MWGallaher on Feb 6, 2021 20:54:15 GMT -5
We’ve seen a lot of varieties of Western Team-Up during this expedition: - Western heroes as co-stars sharing cover billing for a joint adventure
- Western heroes making guest appearances in another Western hero’s comic
- Western heroes sharing adventures with historical figures of the Old West
- Western heroes forging an ongoing partnership, including duos and quartets
- Western heroes opposing one another in shared stories
- Western hero becoming a supporting character in another’s feature
- Western hero teaming up with a potential solo character
- Team-ups of Western villains
- Western heroes time traveling to the future and teaming with super-heroes
- Super-heroes time traveling to the past and teaming with Western heroes
- Super-hero living through adventures in the past past with a Western hero and surviving to modern times
- Western heroes passing the mantle to their contemporary successors
- Modern-day successors inheriting the mantle of Old West heroes
- Parody Western heroes encountering one another
Maybe I didn't get to all of the crossovers featuring Marvel Western characters--I skipped over Two-Gun Kid's stint as a supporting character in She-Hulk (2005) starting in issue 4:  ...making the cover with issue 5:  ...and continuing to appear on a fairly regular basis through issue 21. I also skipped over "Night Rider" making a return appearance in Ghost Rider #56:  Michael Fleisher, Don Perlin, and Mike Esposito gave us "The Menace of Moondark". This is the book that brought the Western hero's ancestor descendent (thanks, Rob Allen !), Hamilton Slade, to the secret cave headquarters of Night Rider, to take up his predecessor's mantle as the modern-day Night Rider:   I never intended to do an exhaustive review of all appearances of Western characters in Marvel's superhero line, but I managed to cover most of them in more detail than I planned, so I won't apologize for the omissions. If you want to find the modern-day adventures of Two-Gun Kid and Night Rider, there they are. As I said early on in this thread, it all started out as a lark, with a series review of a series that only lasted one issue. And then grew and grew. I do apologize for some of the tedious summarizing; I know that didn't make for the most fun reading, but once the format had set it, I felt I should stick with it as much as I could. I also said early in this thread that I was never a particular fan of Marvel's Westerns. Up to this effort, I'd read Western Team-Up #1, some Red Wolf, some Ghost/Night Rider, and a representative sampling of Rawhide Kid, including the Essential volume, the Mantlo/Trimpe miniseries, and the Zimmerman/Severin miniseries. So am I a fan after this? Eh, not especially. Of Marvel's Big Three, I find Rawhide and Colt interchangeable and not particularly interesting. Two-Gun I find a little more appealing, with a little more character, a supporting cast, a base of operations and an interesting superhero-style gimmick. Red Wolf was my favorite of the characters on the Western Team-Up trail, and I'm tempted to take a closer look at Outlaw Kid, Black Rider and Ringo Kid, three characters who had limited engagement here. So if I delve back into Marvel Westerns in another thread, they'll be on the agenda. I started out with the thesis that the Western Team-Up was an effort to infuse Marvel's Western line with some of the elements that had proven effective in their super-hero line, and I still think that's a valid analysis. The team-ups made the Western line into an interconnected universe, something that appealed to the superhero fans, although I don't know how appealing the typical Western reader found them. Fortunately for me, they were done sparingly, but while they were played up, the stories, at least in the Silver Age, weren't any grander in scope than a standard solo story might have been. Beyond that, I don't have a really strong conclusion. I liked some, wasn't impressed by others. If they were using the team-ups to draw some attention from readers more interested in the Marvel superhero line, the stories did at least offer a fair representation of the kind of material they would find month by month in the solo comics. |
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Post by brutalis on Feb 7, 2021 3:08:28 GMT -5
Ya done good pardner! It's great to have a 20+ page exploration of the wild and wooly shoot 'em up Western Teamiings. Very glad you did this and that I could participate in your investigation of these rannies. I will truly enjoy saddling up for reading this thread again every so often.
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 12, 2022 9:14:44 GMT -5
Available on September 14, 2022 is Michael Eury's TwoMorrows The Team-Up Companion Eury's book includes a six-page chapter on WESTERN TEAM-UP, and I am very much looking forward to seeing what a professional writer and researcher can uncover about the odd little comic that triggered this review project I took on! From the preview pages alone, I learned one important fact about the only issue published: the lead story, "Ride the Lawless Land", was originally prepared for an issue of RAWHIDE KID, not used because the series went all reprint. I wondered, could that be right? Looking back at the scan of the original art, I realized that I had missed an important piece of evidence:  On several--but not all--of the pages I posted scans of, there are visible traces of what appears to be the words "Rawhide Kid" at the top, with "Western Team-Up #1 Nov" written in ink over it, and a penciled "116" as the "Issue #". Indeed, this originated as the intended contents of RAWHIDE KID #116, dated October 1973, which reprinted the lead story, "The Riverboat Raiders", from RAWHIDE KID #47. The previous issue, #115, included the last new story published in the run, "The Last Gunfight" by Larry Lieber and George Roussos, also a 14-pager like the new material in WTU #1. It is, I think, a little misleading to characterize this as "an inventory story from from before RK went all-reprint", as Paul Levitz phrased it in The Comic Reader #98, according to John Wells' research into the topic in support of Eury's article. "Inventory story" implies, to me, that it was left homeless until they figured out some place where it could be published. The fact that WTU #1, dated November 1973, was published only one month after its original berth, RAWHIDE KID #116, dated October 1973, suggests that Stan Lee figured that a new #1 and a new team-up format might sell better than than Rawhide's probably-weak-selling book was selling, and put the RK title into reprints, where weak sales could still be profitable, while the new content would henceforth go into the new WTU book. This doesn't resolve all the mystery of the origins of WESTERN TEAM-UP, because the Dakota Kid team-up was certainly not conventional material for RAWHIDE KID's standard stories. Lieber clearly put some serious effort into developing a new character with the potential of spinning off into his own series; why would they use an issue of RK as a spin-off pilot? One possibility, which I think is a pretty strong possibility, is that the RAWHIDE KID series itself was being retooled as a team-up title, under the assumption that it would attract more attention and garner higher sales than a solo RK feature would. Supporting this hypothesis is that this is almost exactly what Marvel had just done a couple of months earlier, converting an existing solo title, MARVEL FEATURE, into a team-up title featuring The Thing. In that case, Marvel quickly concluded (I presume) that the higher sales of a new #1 would outweigh the overhead costs of establishing a new publication--the history of comics is filled with new series or concepts taking over the numbering or the title of an existing series to save on the costs of registering new titles with the Post Office, registering trademarks, etc. With the lesson of MARVEL FEATURE leading to MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE in mind, Stan probably decided to launch a new WESTERN TEAM-UP instead of changing RAWHIDE KID to the new format. This had a benefit that MARVEL FEATURE didn't offer, because Marvel didn't have any material it wanted to continue publishing in MF, while it could continue to profit from RK in the all-reprint format. This hypothesis might be further supported by the fact that some pages of the original art do not appear to have RAWHIDE KID #116 penciled in at the top. Could the decision to put this material in a new title have been made while the original art was still being penciled? Re-marking the existing pages for WESTERN TEAM-UP instead of RAWHIDE KID, while the art produced following the decision only bore the WTU markings? Seems quite likely to me! The preview pages from THE TEAM-UP COMPANION also have another nugget of information. Rawhide Kid was indeed intended as the permanent top-billed character, as I speculated. This was of course the most likely prospect already, since the models of BRAVE & BOLD, WORLD's FINEST, MARVEL TEAM-UP, and MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE established the permanent lead as the norm for comic book team-up titles. Levitz also mentioned in his TCR snippet that WESTERN TEAM-UP would solve "the Gunhawk mess", which we already knew from the blurb ending the final issue of RENO JONES, GUNHAWK. Will THE TEAM-UP COMPANION dig up any other WESTERN TEAM-UP facts? I guess I'll have to pony up the bucks for what is certain to be another fine TwoMorrows publication in a few days! |
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 14, 2022 12:17:19 GMT -5
I've now downloaded The Team-Up Companion and read the complete article on WESTERN TEAM-UP. I'm proud to say that I was able to spot some clues that author Michael Eury didn't.
In reference to "Meet the Manhunter!" from GIANT-SIZE KID COLT #1, he notes that "several online commentators have theorized that the story was conceived for the pre-reprint Kid Colt Outlaw book, and others have guessed that it was intended for the aborted Western Team-Up." Then turning to KID COLT OUTLAW #201, which presented a new team-up between Colt and Rawhide, Eury concludes that it was intended for the never-published GIANT-SIZE KID COLT #4, and notes that since "this Kid Colt/Rawhide Kid story so quickly followed the publication of that same duo in the Giant-Size series' first issue suggests that GSKD [sic--presumably he meant "GSKC" for "Giant-Size Kid Colt"] #1's story was a Rawhide Kid inventory tale..."
As evidenced by the header on the original art (see earlier in this thread) for "Meet the Manhunter!", it was not a Rawhide Kid inventory story, but was in fact the material intended for WESTERN TEAM-UP #2. Eury correctly identified the GIANT-SIZE KID COLT #1 as inventory material, reasoning that two new Rawhide/Colt team-ups wouldn't have been commissioned so close together, he just missed the clue on the tale's original art.
And as for "inventory" story, now that I've read the chapter, I still quibble with the characterization of WESTERN TEAM-UP #1 as using an "inventory story" from RAWHIDE KID. Eury describes "Ride the Lawless Land" as being "fetched from its dusty shelf...instead of being written off as a loss for The Rawhide Kid", even as he acknowledges it was published just two months after RAWHIDE KID's last non-reprint issue. How "dusty" can the pages get in that short a time?
I think Eury was trusting too much in Paul Levitz' language in the brief mention of WESTERN TEAM-UP in THE COMIC READER. Levitz was at the time a teenager who received information from the publishers, and he probably was told that it was initially intended for RAWHIDE KID, leading Levitz to characterize it as "inventory" material.
But that really doesn't add up; if Marvel had already completed the story for RAWHIDE KID, it would be no more expensive to go ahead and run it there, and postpone the reprint era for one more issue. It's not like "Ride the Lawless Land" was below the standards of RAWHIDE KID, and if it were, it certainly wouldn't have been chosen for a prominent position in a new first issue just two months later. No, with RAWHIDE KID continuing to be published, there is no reason I can imagine that they would put prepared new material into inventory and start up reprints of material from the same writer/penciler.
Looking back at the original art pages from "Ride the Lawless Land", I am now completely convinced that partway through production, it was decided that this would be published as the debut of WESTERN TEAM-UP. Hence the early art pages show "Western Team-Up #1" scrawled over "Rawhide Kid #116" while the later pages just say "Western Team-Up #1". I contend that "Ride the Lawless Land" never went into Marvel's "inventory"--its intended publication just changed. It was never abandoned to the "dusty shelf"; it was heading for publication every step of the way!
My previous hypothesis, that the RAWHIDE KID comic was being retooled to a team-up format, must remain speculation for now, and likely, for always--I don't think anyone else is ever going to give this comic the attention that I and Michael Eury have now given it. I repeat that Larry Lieber's preliminary work on the Dakota Kid, evidenced by the design sketches and proposed character names and background and supporting characters, imply that RAWHIDE KID #116 was going to be something quite different from the norm, and I find it very reasonable to suppose that Marvel thought sales could be goosed by adding a co-star to each issue of RK. After all, this is exactly what they did with what little "new" Western material Marvel published in the following years, with that format seeming to be the plan for GIANT-SIZE KID COLT.
Also in the article, Michael Eury speculates on potential for future issues, had WTU continued. He proposes several time-traveling characters--Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, Deathlok--visiting the old West, or Kang transporting Rawhide to the future. And I wouldn't have been surprised to see such stories eventuate, had WTU stayed on the stands, especially if it began to struggle. But there were enough Marvel Western characters to support the original format for at least three years at a bi-monthly frequency, without repeat guest stars.
So here are my made-up Bullpen Bulletin Blurbs for the issues of WESTERN TEAM-UP that exist only in my imagination:
3: Rawhide Kid and Reno Jones, Gunhawk: Will Rawhide help Reno clear his name and rescue his long-lost love?
4: Rawhide Kid and Night Rider: Can the Night Rider save Rawhide from the Indian curse cast upon him?
5: Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid: Hurricane's back--is he too fast for Rawhide and Two-Gun together?
6: Rawhide Kid and Outlaw Kid: Rawhide seeks solace in a town where an "outlaw" is a hero!
7: Rawhide Kid and Red Wolf: Jailed at Fort Rango, Rawhide must defend his captors with the Avenger of the Plains!
8: Rawhide Kid and Black Rider: Rawhide's a suspect murder mystery at a remote ranch...the Black Rider has vowed to avenge the killing!
9: Rawhide Kid and Wyatt Earp: Rawhide's holed up in Tombstone--can he escape the town before Marshall Earp brings him in?
10: Rawhide Kid and Apache Kid: It's a three-way team-up, or so Rawhide thinks, when he meets Aloysius Kare and his alter ego, the Apache Kid!
11: Rawhide Kid and the Ringo Kid: Rawhide infiltrates a racist town to rescue the half-breed Ringo!
12: Rawhide Kid and Gunslinger: A trained dog leads Rawhide to a desperate Gunslinger defending a ranching widow!
13: Rawhide Kid and Caleb Hammer: Can Rawhide elude a professional detective in the midst of a frontier gang war?
14: Rawhide Kid and Outcast: The Outcast returns to wreak havoc, and Rawhide must either calm the maddened savage or put him down!
15: Rawhide Kid and the Renegades: Can Rawhide trust a quartet of deserters when his life is on the line?
16: Rawhide Kid and Bountyhawk: The relentless manhunter is on Rawhide's trail!
17: Rawhide Kid and Matt Slade: Rawhide's on the alert when he discovers his new partner is an undercover U.S. Marshall!
18: Rawhide Kid and the Masked Raider: Marvel's first Western hero vows to bring Rawhide in dead or alive!
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 14, 2022 13:14:05 GMT -5
Nobody has more fun with stuff like this than you, MWGallaher! And we're glad you do! |
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 14, 2022 18:54:54 GMT -5
Thanks, Hal! Revisiting this thread really makes me wish there were more Silver and Bronze Age western team-ups to read. I know DC had a few crossovers with Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, Scalphunter, and a few others, but even though I find DC's Westerns to generally be superior, they don't have the magic of a 60's Marvel western comic, juvenile though they usually were. I may just finish up my Second Tier Marvel Western Heroes thread, then go binge some Two-Gun Kid for fun!
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 15, 2022 11:06:27 GMT -5
Thanks, Hal! Revisiting this thread really makes me wish there were more Silver and Bronze Age western team-ups to read. I know DC had a few crossovers with Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, Scalphunter, and a few others, but even though I find DC's Westerns to generally be superior, they don't have the magic of a 60's Marvel western comic, juvenile though they usually were. I may just finish up my Second Tier Marvel Western Heroes thread, then go binge some Two-Gun Kid for fun! Yeah, DC Western team-ups are like hen's teeth, and most of them were done well after team-ups became more common. On the other hand, there were times, especially in the pages of Tomahawk, when real-life characters dropped in for a visit. I know Tomahawk met the young Davy Crocket, for instance in the same month that DC's first issue of Frontier Fighters, with Davy Crockett as the cover feature, hit the stands (July, 1955) at the height of Crockett-mania. Young Davy was wearing essentially the same yellow (?) buckskins as FF Davy, so I'm thinking that was meant as a kinda-sorta cross-promotional team-up between two DC characters.   Disney's own Crockett title came out in the same month, and I'm sure that was the reason DC was careful not to use the Crockett name in the title. Plus FF always featured three stories and three characters, the others being Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill. TW, in doing a little digging, I came across this story from Star Spangled 84 (September 1948) in which Tomahawk isn't even rating a mention on the cover. I'd never heard of, it but would love to read because it is such an oddity considering when it was published; its eerieness and unique plot strike me as more "post-modern than Golden Age. Although maybe the writer was channeling Val Lewton movies.  Here's the synopsis, courtesy the indefatigable and indispensable Mike's Amazing. (Thank you, as always, Mike!): "Death row inmate Dirk Larabee threatens to rat out his former criminal associates before his scheduled execution. His lawyer convinces him to stay quiet by explaining that the electric chair has really been set up as a time machine. Larabee believes the story and convinces himself that he will be sent back to the 18th century. When Larabee is executed, he dreams that he is sent back to Tomahawk's day. Seeking to create a criminal empire in the past, Larabee breaks other criminals out of jail. Using modern methods of crime, Larabee then begins several criminal enterprises. Tomahawk tries to stop him, but Larabee continues to elude capture. Larabee then decides he needs electricity for a counterfeiting ring. He raids the home of Ben Franklin, but is electrocuted during one of the inventor's experiments. The prison guards witnessing, Larabee's execution in the electric chair overhear the criminal's last words. As he dies, Larabee is still in his dream about Tomahawk and Ben Franklin." Have to find this one! Anyway, happy trails, podnuh! |
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 15, 2022 21:26:19 GMT -5
So, just to put it all down concisely, here's my speculation on the "secret origin" of WESTERN TEAM-UP #1: - Sales on RAWHIDE KID are too low.
- Idea 1--Having a co-star or guest star may increase appeal!
- Idea 2--Introducing a new continuing character may increase appeal!
- Larry Lieber is directed to create new potentially ongoing character to debut in "new direction" RAWHIDE KID, satisfying both ideas.
- Lieber develops new character, visual design, back story, possible names; "The Dakota Kid" is approved.
- Lieber begins working on "Ride the Lawless Land" for RAWHIDE KID #116, introducing The Dakota Kid as co-star or guest star.
- Based on the MARVEL FEATURE/MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE experience, Stan directs that the story will instead move to a new title WESTERN TEAM-UP, and RAWHIDE KID will go all-reprint. All new Western stories will be slotted for WESTERN TEAM-UP, to be anchored by Rawhide Kid.
- Lieber and Colletta continue work on "Ride the Lawless Land", now slated for WESTERN TEAM-UP #1.
- RENO JONES, GUNHAWK is cancelled. Roy Thomas promises the story will be wrapped up in a future issue of WESTERN TEAM-UP.
- Lieber and Colletta finish work on WESTERN TEAM-UP #2 story co-starring Kid Colt.
- WESTERN TEAM-UP #1 is published.
- Based on overall tepid sales for Westerns, WTU is cancelled after a single issue. No newly-created Western stories will be initiated. Wrap-up of Reno Jones' story is abandoned.
- With reprints already in the pipeline for RAWHIDE KID, "Meet the Manhunter!" is scheduled for next available issue of RAWHIDE KID, #121, using cover created for WESTERN TEAM-UP #2.
- Marvel's Giant-Size format debuts, thought to be the future of the line.
- Envisioning an expansion of the Giant-Size books, a Giant-Size western comic is anticipated. Team-ups still seem the most appealing way to go, so "Meet the Manhunter!" is pulled back for GIANT-SIZE RAWHIDE KID, or GIANT-SIZE KID COLT, or GIANT-SIZE WESTERN TEAM-UP, or whatever they finally settle on.
- GIANT-SIZE KID COLT is selected to be the Western entry in the Giant-Size line.
- Since the WESTERN TEAM-UP #2 cover focuses on Rawhide, it's not suitable for GIANT-SIZE KID COLT. It stays, already altered, as the cover for RAWHIDE KID #121, which will now reprint the team-up from KID COLT OUTLAW #121.
- RAWHIDE KID #121 is published with the Rawhide/Colt cover, but some snafu leads to a Rawhide/Two-Gun team-up reprint inside, instead of a reprint of KID COLT OUTLAW #121. Oops!
- GIANT-SIZE KID COLT gets on the schedule, and is published with the contents intended for WESTERN TEAM-UP #2, under a new cover.
I'm sure that not all my guesses are correct, but I do think it went something like that. The main new speculation I've introduced above is the possibility that the new direction for RAWHIDE KID may not have been an alternating guest-star format a la BRAVE & BOLD, but an ongoing teaming of Rawhide and Dakota, a la WORLD's FINEST. I consider this a possibility mainly because Larry Lieber had to know that there was no likely other berth that would open up for Dakota, so what else was he investing the effort of character development for?
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Post by genephillips on Jul 18, 2023 9:27:06 GMT -5
A worthy (if even less historical) crossover appeared in 1965, in a one-off story by Denny O'Neil in RAWHIDE KID 54, wherein boatman Mike Fink met Bat Masterson. A good trick, since Masterson was born thirty years after the historical Fink's death.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 20, 2023 8:33:37 GMT -5
A worthy (if even less historical) crossover appeared in 1965, in a one-off story by Denny O'Neil in RAWHIDE KID 54, wherein boatman Mike Fink met Bat Masterson. A good trick, since Masterson was born thirty years after the historical Fink's death. One of the first things I do whenever I read a fictional story with real life characters is check that sort of thing... good to know I'm not the only one. Also, welcome! |
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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 20, 2023 21:28:39 GMT -5
A second welcome to you, genephillips ! I've been revisiting this topic as I consider doing a more focused study of the origins of WTU in another venue, but I wanted to bring up another speculation on the Dakota Kid. It occurred to me that Dakota may have been developed a few years earlier as a potential feature in WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS, but was rejected in favor of the grittier, less conventional type of characters like Gunhawk, Renegades, and Outcast. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 20, 2023 21:59:03 GMT -5
A second welcome to you, genephillips ! I've been revisiting this topic as I consider doing a more focused study of the origins of WTU in another venue, but I wanted to bring up another speculation on the Dakota Kid. It occurred to me that Dakota may have been developed a few years earlier as a potential feature in WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS, but was rejected in favor of the grittier, less conventional type of characters like Gunhawk, Renegades, and Outcast. other venue? |
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Post by zaku on Jul 21, 2023 0:12:27 GMT -5
But did bad guys ever die in a shootout in the Silver Age? And if not, was it more an editorial choice or a limitation of the Comics Code..?
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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 21, 2023 17:32:13 GMT -5
But did bad guys ever die in a shootout in the Silver Age? And if not, was it more an editorial choice or a limitation of the Comics Code..? I don't have any examples readily at hand, but I believe it did happen occasionally. One trick Marvel used was ambiguity. Here's the first of two bad guys that Rawhide shoots in 1973' #110:  Followed by:  The script never explicitly says that they are dead, and Lieber conspicuously shows the pistols flying from the bad guys' hands, presumably allowing them to claim to the Comics Code Authority that it was the hoary old shoot-the-gun-out-of-their-hands gimmick, which was certainly depicted routinely in their Westerns. This cheat has a strikingly strange effect here, where they certainly seem to have been shot dead, while the reaction of the kids and Rawhide are disturbingly casual. |
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Post by zaku on Jul 22, 2023 1:46:25 GMT -5
But did bad guys ever die in a shootout in the Silver Age? And if not, was it more an editorial choice or a limitation of the Comics Code..? I don't have any examples readily at hand, but I believe it did happen occasionally. One trick Marvel used was ambiguity. Here's the first of two bad guys that Rawhide shoots in 1973' #110: Followed by: The script never explicitly says that they are dead, and Lieber conspicuously shows the pistols flying from the bad guys' hands, presumably allowing them to claim to the Comics Code Authority that it was the hoary old shoot-the-gun-out-of-their-hands gimmick, which was certainly depicted routinely in their Westerns. This cheat has a strikingly strange effect here, where they certainly seem to have been shot dead, while the reaction of the kids and Rawhide are disturbingly casual. Thank you 😊 (even if this example is technically Bronze Age). We had a similar discussion in The Spectre thread. The Code didn't explicitly forbid showing the good guys killing the bad guys, but people at DC and Marvel preferred to be very cautious, because the CCA had a lot of leeway to make its decisions and there was no way to appeal. |
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