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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 24, 2020 21:42:08 GMT -5
Kid Colt Outlaw #125, November 1965 “Day of the Gunslingers” by Lieber/Keller/Rosen, 17pgs 
Summary: Time for the third meet-up, finally acquainting all three of Marvel’s mid-60’s cowboy heroes with one another, as Kid Colt encounters the Two-Gun Kid. Our splash opens the story with Kid Colt fleeing a posse, all of them on horseback. But if you look close, on the hilltop, there’s a tiny figure, a rifleman who scares off the posse with warning shots—but he could have hit ‘em if he’d wanted to do more than send ‘em scurrying!  The “ree-ward money” doesn’t compensate for a likely ambush, so the posse turns tail, and Colt expresses his gratitude to the marksman, who works for one Silas Kane. Colt accepts the fellow’s invitation to meet Mr. Kane in town…”so long as I don’t hafta break the law!” Off they head to Tombstone (as you might remember, the Two-Gun Kid’s stomping grounds!). The excitement in Tombstone revolves around the mayoral race; Fred Johnson’s running for reelection, but Silas Kane is there to heckle Johnson’s boasts of having brought the best lawman—Sheriff Bret Barton--into what was once a crime-ridden town. Kane sends his men to further disrupt the campaign by literally slinging mud at Mayor Johnson!  The sheriff attempts to resolve the tumult, but Kane’s boys got no respect for the law, and Matt Hawk (a.k.a. Two-Gun) and his pal Boom Boom even the odds, sending the rabble rousers packing. About that time, Kid Colt and his new friend arrive, sneaking around the back way to meet up with Kane, which arouses Colt’s suspicions. Seems Silas Kane is running for mayor himself, on an explicit agenda to “run Tombstone crookedly and profitably for myself!” Colt’s got no interest in getting this guy elected, and his refusal to join the party leads to a fist-fight, and then to Kane’s gang emptying Colt’s chambers, but making him ride alongside them as they hold up the bank. Matt changes to his Two-Gun costume, aiming to run down the thieves on his lonesome. But the boys know exactly how dangerous Two-Gun is, and they scatter, leaving the unarmed Kid Colt holding the bag. Next thing you know, Two-Gun is marching Colt into the sheriff’s, where Colt’s tale of being shanghaied and framed is not taken seriously.  Always on the lookout for a client, Two-Gun recommends the services of Matt Hawk, but Colt doubts he’ll get a fair trial, and escapes by prying up the floorboards of the jail. Then he heads right back inside the jail, locks up Sheriff Barton, recovers his hardware, and skedaddles! He pulls up on the reins and postpones a hasty retreat when he sees the gang that framed him, starting a shootout and defending himself from inside a barn. Two-Gun arrives, and realizes the attack proves Colt’s story was legit. The boys are smart enough to know not to tussle with Colt and Two-Gun, and they turn tail, with the Kids on their heels, riding together.  Colt saves Two-Gun from a cowardly shot from behind, taking the bullet in his own shoulder. Two-Gun mops up the mob, certain now that Kid Colt is a stand-up guy. He lets Colt go free, and Silas Kane is arrested rather than inaugurated. The sheriff vows to tear up all of the Kid Colt “wanted” posters he has, as Colt rides into the sunset. Comments: Pretty familiar stuff, as Two-Gun once again arrests an “outlaw” Kid, comes to believe in him, and allows him to escape. The details of the story don’t make a lot of sense; if Kane wants to be mayor, it doesn’t seem like having his gang rob the bank is a good way to get votes, and framing Kid Colt doesn’t seem to serve much purpose, either. All I can figure is that Kane’s just a downright bad man who wants to flaunt it and still be elected to office, proving that the people want a loudmouth bully in charge. Totally unbelievable stuff, right? Probably the weakest team-up so far, close on the heels of the previous one. Seems weird to devote so much of the story to the mayoral campaign, which is entirely incidental to the plot. This is nominally a Kid Colt story, but he and Two-Gun both seem like guest stars in this one to me. Based on my sampling so far, I'm mystified as to why Kid Colt had the longevity that he did. Remember that he's the only one of this trio that hasn't been rebooted, so he's the senior star of the Marvel Western pantheon, so he must have had his share of fans. Me, I'm on team Two-Gun, but none of these guys are really making much of an impact. Jack Keller's work here reminds me of the work of Jack Elrod, who drew the comic strip Mark Trail (and one of my sentimental favorite strips, The Ryatts). It's a bit rustic and old-fashioned, with a touch of EC--check out page 5 above for some John Severin-esque faces and some un-dynamic work not unlike Al Feldstein's. It does have character, though, and I'm still rather fond of it. He does do a nice job on the horses! Coming Attractions:We've got a couple more two-man team-ups ahead of us. Marvel must have been getting some positive response to these, as they are accelerating in frequency. We have yet to see the team-ups come to the Two-Gun Kid comic itself, but it won't be long. Next, though, Rawhide is going to meet up again with one of his new amigos.
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 25, 2020 18:02:08 GMT -5
I know it pisses off a LOT of pople on various comics message boards when I point this out. But it's the truth. If it says "written by Stan Lee, drawn by Dick Ayers", what really happened was... STORY AND ART -- Dick Ayers DIALOGUE -- Stan Lee IN EVERY CASE. While doing some research for an upcoming very special western team-up, I happened across this in the Bullpen Bulletins from March 1966:  I'd never seen it explicitly admitted that Dick Ayers plotted the stories he was drawing, and I think Stan/Marvel regretted being open about the artists' contributions to the plotting, shifting to a "forget we ever said that" attitude as the Marvel Myth evolved, with credits that either obscured individual contributions or misleadingly limited them. Anyway, there it is in black and...err, yellow, expressed not as an occasional approach but as the standard process. |
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 26, 2020 7:35:01 GMT -5
Rawhide Kid #50, February 1966 “The Menacing Masquerader Strikes Again” by Lieber/Hubbell/Rosen, 17 pgs  Summary: In the splash page, Rawhide’s facing off against two Kids Colt! Which is which? Even the credits are scrambled to get you in the frame of mind for a puzzler!  The story gets underway with an old man who, we are informed, is the sinister gunhawk men call "The Masquerader" (fresh off his debut in the previous issue, Rawhide Kid #49) was following his debut in the previous issue, #49. , who’s spying on Kid Colt bathing in the stream. He swipes Colt’s clothes, intent on using them as a disguise to commit the perfect crime. Colt, naturally, keeps a spare set of clothes and pistols in his saddle bag (so he’s not always wearing the same costume—he’s got a duplicate of that black-splotched vest!)  Next, we find ourselves at the wedding of Katherine Jones and Joe Clay. Joe was the former sheriff in Willow Flats, but he’s given up the badge for married life. Among the guest is the Rawhide Kid, who is Joe’s brother, as revealed in issue 45. Joe’s new bride cringes at the approach of this “outlaw” brother-in-law, having a bad hate on for outlaws, since a gang of ‘em killed her pa. Rawhide takes a hint and departs the party, whilst over at the Express office, bandits are cracking the safe. The yeggmen are interrupted by “Kid Colt”, who absconds with their loot. When gunplay starts, Joe and Rawhide respond to the alarm. Rawhide recognizes his apparent old amigo, and tries to defend him from brother Joe. But “Colt” then fires on Joe! What the heck’s going on? Joe’s alive, but Katherine’s ticked, and the wedding party suspects Rawhide of colluding with his fellow “outlaw”, as well as being a Kirby swipe…  …so Rawhide aims to bring in “Kid Colt”. Of course, this “Kid Colt” is really The Masquerader, who returns to his disguise of a “harmless pot-bellied farmer” just when Rawhide catches up. Masquerader sets Rawhide off in the direction of the real Kid Colt, who has no idea what Rawhide’s talking about with this talk of gunnin’ down Rawhide’s brother!  Time for another brawl, again to a draw, and both figure out that “Kid Colt” who shot Joe Clay was the notorious Masquerader, who must have been the one that swiped Colt’s duds. The Masquerader is nearby, so he knows he’s scheme has been blown, but now he can follow the Kids discretely.  The Kids quickly figure out that the “farmer” must have been the master of disguise they’re pursuing, and split up so that they can both explore the two possible directions he might have gone. But Masquerader’s not where they expect; he’s up in the hills where he can pick off the Kids one by one, starting with Colt! Rawhide makes it to Gila Springs, where there’s no sign of their target. “Kid Colt” shows up, having supposedly had no luck over in Ashton. “Colt” fingers an old sod-buster with a heavy beard, and Rawhide heads off in pursuit, not realizing that The Masquerader, as “Kid Colt”, is following behind him, gun drawn.  Fortunately, the real Colt arrives to hold him off, but now Rawhide has no idea who’s who! The giveaway is when one of the Colts bolts—that’s gotta be the imposter, so Rawhide and real Colt are on his tail! Rawhide tackles the phony, and they duke it out, until The Masquerader makes a misstep and plummets down a canyon into the waters.  Rawhide’s recovered the Express payroll, kindly telling Colt that he'll clear his name on this robbery rap, so's Colt can go on his way. Back at Willow Flats, Joe’s recovering, and Rawhide delivers the scoop. But even though Rawhide and Colt were innocent, Katherine wants her brother-in-law gone, and Rawhide complies. Summary:Rawhide's landmark 50th is another team-up, so I suspect Stan's been happy with the results of incorporating more touches of his superhero line into the westerns. We've also got a primitive western "super-villain"--not an especially spectacular one, but one who has evidently earned a rep in Rawhide's territories. Inconveniently, for this to work, the story is required to discretely acknowledge one of the obvious but unspoken and unlikely conventions of these series: that the lead character has a "uniform" that he operates in. I'll buy that Kid Colt travels light and washes the same small change of clothes regular-like, but not that he's got a spare trademark vest. And come to think of it, wouldn't adopting a signature fashion piece be counterproductive for someone on the run from an undeserved "outlaw" status? The core of the plot--confusion between two possible Kid Colts--isn't a bad one conceptually, but it gets some clumsy handling here. I doubt that few readers were ever in doubt about which "Kid Colt" was on panel, and maybe it's just me, but I never was able to buy into the "perfect disguises" via practical means, whether it was the Chameleon in Amazing Spider-Man or TV's Impossible Mission Force on Mission Impossible. No great loss when The Masquerader plunges to his assumed demise (although we all know that's entirely survivable in a comic book world). I suppose some acknowledgment of the Rawhide soap opera needs to be paid. Piling on a little more misery, with Rawhide having kin-folk that he meets but can't stay in contact with because of his rep does beef up the character a bit with richer background and some potential supporting cast. I don't know how much was done with Joe down the line but I suspect not much. Maybe killing him off would have been more powerful, but I can understand why they'd want to hold on to the character just in case. Which reminds me that this story seemed to be trying extra-hard to be inoffensively non-violent, always a challenge for a genre that relied on pistol-packers. The Masquerader's thought balloons make a specific point of watering down the action by making the shooting of brother Joe an accident: "I'll fire a warning shot to scare him off! Wha...he moved! I...I hit him! Blast the luck! I only wanted to frighten him!" After that, though, he's prepared to be lethal, although conveniently incompetent at it, only grazing Kid Colt when he fires from high ground. When it comes to the team-up aspects, things are mighty familiar. We've got the routine conflict between the heroes, engaged with fists, of course, and coming to a draw so as not to establish either as being the better scrapper. Art-wise, Larry Lieber continues to channel Kirby throughout. Golden Age vet Carl Hubbell supplies substantive and suitable inks. The little game with the scrambled credits would be suspicious if it weren't for the fact that Larry Lieber always got his fair due as writer and artist, but those superhero fans who picked up this issue based on the added team-up attraction, might well have assumed the correct solution was "Stan Lee, Writer and Editor" when they tried to match the four names with the five duties. Coming Attractions: Next up, something a bit different as we take a look at another twist on the western team-up that puts me back in some recently-traveled territory!
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 26, 2020 14:16:07 GMT -5
Kid Colt Outlaw #127, March 1966 “Iron Mask and His Circus of Crime”, 17 pgs Roy Thomas and Steve Skeates (plot)/Steve Skeates (script)/Jack Keller (art)/Artie Simek (letters)  Iron Mask, armored western villain, as seen in #110, 114, and 121!  Doctor Danger, master of magnetism, from #116!  The Fat Man, a whiz with a boomerang, from #117!  Bennington Brown, “the master of sense deception” from #112!  Although the cover puts it in fine print, we’re about to see four of Kid Colt’s recent enemies teaming up against him. This is possibly not the first “Western Super-Villain Team-Up” Marvel published, it’s the most notable so far, and will probably serve as the only representative in this set of reviews. As I’ve mentioned more than once, Stan Lee was drawing heavily on his superhero successes to juice up the western corner of Marvel’s output. The hero team-ups were one part, but an even bigger part was the addition of more flamboyant villains, with distinctive costumes and uncanny talents. Kid Colt had recently been flooded with “super-villains”, but had managed to deal with them all. Now it’s time to up the ante by uniting them as the “Circus of Crime”. This wasn’t Marvel’s first gang of criminal carnies; the 60’s incarnation appeared earlier in Incredible Hulk #3, September 1962. It wasn’t even Kid Colt’s first encounter with a “Circus of Crime”, as he had dealt with an earlier one in issue 106, September 1962!  Summary: Rather than opening with Kid Colt, the story begins instead with villains Doctor Danger and the Fat Man colliding as they both squeeze through the swinging saloon doors. They don’t know each other, but that’s about to change…  The two get off to an uneasy start, and Danger challenges Fat Man to slap leather. Fat Man responds with a hurl of his weapon of choice, the boomerang, while Danger grabs a metal tray with his magnet, using that to deflect the blow that was headed his way. The boomerang instead slams into the meal of a nearby diner, the well-dressed Bennington Brown, who lures the two into a head-on collision as they try to attack a hypnotic image, while Brown remains in his seat. Now that we know most of our villains and their specialties, it’s time to meet the man who will be their ringmaster, in function if not in guise, none other than Iron Mask, who has summoned the others by telegram to unite for “the greatest robbery ever planned!!” At this point, Kid Colt finally appears in the story, heading for Phoenix, Arizona. The new Governor’s about to be sworn in, and Colt’s hoping to get a pardon from this man, known to be a square shooter. The town deputy doesn’t arrest Colt, who hasn’t been recognized, but he does confiscate his shooting irons, so as to insure the Governor and visiting dignitaries will be safe.  Seems the festivities surrounding the Governor’s ceremony include a circus! Kid Colt’s curious, but he immediately recognizes three of his most dangerous enemies!  As part of the entertainment, Doctor Danger uses his magnet to snatch an expensive watch off a spectator, and invites him on stage to retrieve it. Mr. Brown then uses the pocket watch to hypnotize the old man, then to levitate him as he sleeps, with an apple poised on his head. The Fat Man then uses his boomerang to cleave the apple on its return path to his hands. An amazing show, to at least some in the crowd, but Kid Colt skulks away, suspicious. On sighting their mutual enemy, the alarmed Circus members direct the crowd’s attention to the outlaw in their midst, and Kid Colt, unarmed, has to attempt a hasty retreat, but he’s felled by the Fat Man’s “heroic” hurl of the boomerang! The Circus, demonstrating their upright civic responsibility, escort the Kid to the sheriff, earning the adulation of the townspeople. This earns them an invitation to perform before the Governor…just the break they were hoping for! Kid Colt’s a hard one to keep locked up for long, though. He’s smuggled a rope in his boot, with which he lassos the keys hanging on the wall beside the dozing deputy, and breaks out, intent on helping the town whether they want it or not! At the ball, the sheriff introduces the town’s new “heroes”, who start performing their act before the Governor. The clown (who ever could he be?) juggles and balances a chair on his forehead, Mr. Brown hypnotizes the sheriff into surrendering his gun. Armed with the lawman’s firearm, the clown yanks off his clown face, revealing, to no reader’s surprise, the metal-clad visage of the Iron Mask.  And now the gang’s plan enters into full swing, with Fat Man using his boomerang to sweep up priceless pearls, Danger magnetically drawing valuable money-belts and pocket-watches to him. Suddenly, Kid Colt bursts through the window, snatching the boomerang in mid air and using it to disarm Dr. Danger.  Time for Mr. Brown to step in, and he attempts to plant cowardice into Colt’s mind, but before he succumbs, Colt shoves a barrel over Brown’s head, disrupting his hypnotic gaze. Iron Mask wings the Governor in the shoulder as he flees the party, with Colt pursuing the ridiculous-looking villain into a conveniently located cave:  It all comes down to Kid Colt vs. Iron Mask, in a shoot-out that waste’s Colt’s bullets on the armor beneath the clown suit…but Colt also has Danger’s magnet, a perfect weapon for disarming his armored foe, permitting Colt to rattle Iron Mask’s brain pan a bit. Colt returns his foe to face justice, but the Governor’s headed east to get healed up…a pardon’s not in the cards, Colt! Ride on!  Comments: Not much to add—teaming the villains is a natural follow-up to the one-on-one encounters of previous issues. I don’t get the twist of the villains setting up a circus act, but maybe that was a bigger draw to kids in the 60’s than it was in my day? Putting Iron Mask in the clown suit leads to some pretty ridiculous visuals, unbecoming of what was presumably Colt’s main nemesis of the era.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 26, 2020 14:55:13 GMT -5
Well, the Circus of Crime idea had worked in Spider-Man and the Hulk (and at Marvel anyway, back to 1941 in Captain America, so maybe Stan was just going back to the well for this second Wild West circus crew. But it answer your question re circuses in the 1960s, it got me thinking, and I think you're right, MWGallaher. The circus was indeed a big thing back then. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, aka "The Greatest Show on Earth," was enormously popular. I grew up seeing TV commercials for it prior to and during its annual arrival at Madison Square Garden. On TV, there was also "Circus Boy," featuring Mickey Dolenz and Robert Lowery, who played Batman in one of the serials; "Trapeze," which everyone saw a bunch of times on Million Dollar Movie; and a circus prime-time show called "International Showtime." One of the popular local kiddie shows in the NYC area in the early 60s was "Terrytoon Circus," hosted by Claude Kirchner, who had hosted a more elaborate circus kiddie show in the early 50s called "Super Circus," as the ringmaster. He was assisted by his wise-guy puppet sidekick Clownie. Bozo was also a constant TV presence, with his "live" show and cartoons. And Emmett Kelly, who popped up on variety shows as well as in the RB/B and B circus. Back in the early 70s, as a college kid working for the rec department as a counselor, we took busloads of kids to the new Garden to see the circus. Yikes, they loved it! So, yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much a part of popular culture the circus was back then. |
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 26, 2020 19:26:05 GMT -5
I've been to 3 circuses in my life. There was a small, local circus on the way to Trenton that I went to when I was already probably too old for that sort of thing. Before that, I got to see the famous Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus, at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. That was pretty impressive, although somehow, a bit tame in the indoor building. But when I was 4 YEARS OLD, I got to see the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus. That show was put on in a tradition "big top" tent. We got there early, and sat in about the 2nd or 3rd row near the center ring. WHAT A SHOW. Equally amazing when I think back on it, my Mom took my brother and me back there a couple days later, and we got to meet Clyde Beatty in person. He was nice enough to take the time to put on his lion-tamer's outfit to pose for a photo with my brother and me. Some things you don't forget. About 15 years back, I saw a movie he starred in as himself, " RING OF FEAR". That was pretty cool, and brought back some terrific memories. Just now, I found this newsreel film online... |
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 27, 2020 19:46:07 GMT -5
Two Gun Kid #85, January 1967 “Fury at Falcon Flats” by Lieber/Ayers/Colletta/Sherigail, 17 pgs  Summary: We begin with Two-Gun tracking some owlhoots who are intent on ambushing the masked lawman, making the town of Tombstone an easy target.  Two-Gun gets in a fix, but camping nearby is the Rawhide Kid, and since Two-Gun “is one of the few folks I call ‘ friend’”, according to Rawhide, he comes to Two-Gun’s aid. As the pair face off against superior odds, one of the enemy, who tangled with Rawhide back in Texas, sees his chance to get even, and calls for the mob to rush the Kids. He manages to conk out Rawhideb before dispersing under Two-Gun’s fire. Is Rawhide dead?  No, of course not. The next day, an army payroll wagon is driven over a cliff by particularly heartless thugs, who granb the payroll and leave behind Rawhide’s garter…yep, these are the same owlhoots our heroes tussled with, and now they’re framing the Rawhide Kid! Evidently Rawhide’s not on the “wanted list” in Tombstone, so he goes for a bite in town, whilc Two-Gun returns to his civilian identity. The setup is almost complete: the investigators have found Rawhide’s armband at the scene of the crime, with two men dead, and have not found the payroll. In the town diner, Two-Gun, in his identity of lawyer Matt Hawk, chats a bit with Rawhide, while Rawhide’s revenge-hungry enemy plants some of the payroll loot in Rawhide’s saddlebag, completing his plans! The plant leads, of course, to an arrest:  Matt Hawk again defends Rawhide, explaining that he was set up by the outlaw, but Rawhide can’t remember just where he met the real culprit. Without more to go on, the judge rejects Rawhide’s claims of innocence, and sentences Rawhide to the firing squad! But it’s Two-Gun to the rescuing, causing an explosion to cover his escape with his amigo Rawhide. Rawhide finally remembers the face: it’s Burt Larson, a gambler whose scheme to sell arms to the Apache was foiled by the Rawhide Kid back in Texas. The Kids trail Larson to the lawless town of Falcon Flats. Figuring that the outlaws assume Rawhide’s been executed, the Kids come up with a plan, extracting some glow-in-the-dark secretions from a curious plant, and figuring out a way to pass Rawhide off as a ghost!   The “ghost of Rawhide” puts a mighty scare on the boys, but Larson is skeptical, until he’s pummeled with punches as the spirit warns him “Your crime has affronted the entire spirit world! We are enraged! We thirst for vengeance!” The act appears to be going over, but Larson claims “I never bought that ghost bit for a second! I was just pretendin’…to get yuh to show all of yourself—to give me a target that I can’t miss!” But he forgot about Two-Gun, who has his pair of six-shooters aimed at Larson’s back. When Larson turns to fire on Two-Gun, Two-Gun disarms the man by shooting the pistols out of Larson’s hands. Seems he doesn’t like to hurt an enemy more than necessary, and he needs Larson to clear Rawhide’s name. All is cleared up, Rawhide’s free to go, and he and Two-Gun part as friends.  Comments: The same thing that’s jumping out to me is most likely jumping out at you: Rawhide’s routine at the end of this story is exactly that which Marvel’s western Ghost Rider, debuting a year later, will be conducting. Ominous and stentorian speeches, glow-in-the dark effects, cloaking the body to appear to be a floating head. Given that artist Dick Ayers would be the plotter on Ghost Rider, seems he may have contributed more than just an art job on this one, too, attributed to Larry Lieber, “writer”. The Ghost Rider act is the focus of this story, but curiously, it’s not played up at all on the cover, with Rawhide appearing only as an inset head shot. Makes ya wonder whether this cover was whipped up (by Larry Lieber and Sol Brodsky) before the plot had been decided on. Last time Rawhide was in Tombstone Territory, he was a wanted man there. Seems to be a slip-up here in this follow-up to Marvel’s first Western Team-Up, but who can expect the Bullpen to keep up? Coming Attractions: The super-heroization of Marvel’s core western line up is on the wane, and the team-ups must not be generating the kind of heat they once were, because we’ve got one more Silver Age congregation of old west headliners, concluding with a three-way meeting of all the Kids then appearing in new stories at Marvel. But that’s not the end of the trail quite yet, as there are some team-ups outside the thread’s mission statement that will merit a look before we move back into the 1970’s.
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 29, 2020 9:11:58 GMT -5
Two Gun Kid #89, September 1967 “Three Rode Together” by Gary Friedrich/Ogden Whitney/Artie Simek, 17 pgs  Our big finale, at least for the initial spurt of western team-ups of the 1960’s, opens not with magazine star Two-Gun, but with Rawhide, who happens upon a stagecoach robbery. One of the robbers, the appropriately-nick-named “Pig” alerts the others to the intrusion, encouraging them to “drill” the potential witness…which “Zeke” achieves, felling Rawhide and leaving him lying at the stage, now looted of its strong box. Along comes our other guest star, Kid Colt, attracted by the sight of vultures! Rawhide was only grazed, and as Colt revives him and Rawhide recognizes his old chum, they find the bodies of the stage coach passengers and driver, all dead. They take the driver’s wallet, to notify his kin, just in time to be arrested by… …Two-Gun Kid!  For the first time ever, all three of Marvel’s 1960’s western headliners are together! Despite Two-Gun’s previous impressions of these two, he’s now convinced that they are the outlaws and killers they’re reputed to be, and drives them at double gunpoint to Tombstone, to face the law for murder. Colt and Rawhide protest their innocence and explain the events, but Two-Gun’s not buying it! After the sheriff locks up our boys, “Pig” and the gang are partying at the saloon, organizing a lynch mob for the fellas they’re loudly proclaiming as guilty. That’d be a good way to divert any suspicion from their own true guilt over the crime!  The lynch mob marches on the jail, where Matt (Two-Gun Kid) Hawk and his pal Boom-Boom support the sheriff by trying to disperse the crowd with the threat of two double-barreled shotguns.  But they’re overwhelmed, and retreat behind the barred doors of the jailhouse. Time to escort the prisoners to safety, and for that, the sheriff asks Matt to “contact the Two-Gun Kid…and hurry!” The mob’s going all out, picking up a massive log to use as a battering ram, while Matt changes into his Two-Gun garb. Two-Gun evidently has a route into the jail that the mob doesn’t have access to; how else to explain his arrival in the jailhouse, where Boom-Boom and Sheriff Brett are binding the “outlaw” kids for extrusion. The three Kids head for that (presumed) secret exit, while Boom-Boom and Brett suddenly open the door to the rush of the battering ram. The mob takes a tumble as momentum carries them all the way through to the back, in time to see the three Kids riding off on horseback. The crowd now departs after Brett’s assurance that the prisoners are being taken by a “deputy” to another jail (along with his warning that he’s willing to jail them if they don’t let the law handle this matter). Two-Gun’s driving the guest-stars to the Tuscon jail, keeping their hands tied on the way. He’s unmoved by Colt’s pleas to allow them to prove their honesty and willingness to obey the law, even if it limits the trio’s traveling speed. That limit might just be to the benefit of “Pig” and his gang, who hadn’t accompanied the lynch mob they riled up—maybe they didn’t want to risk Rawhide recognizing them if the lynching got farther along than it did. They realize they better catch up to the Kids and tie up the loose ends, so they mount up and hit the trail in pursuit.  Night falls on the Kids, and Two-Gun allows his prisoners the chance to “stretch your wrists” and eat, when they’re attacked from the hills above them by an arrow-shooting Indian. The Kids take cover behind their saddles while Two-Gun, the only one armed, shoots an Indian who is now attacking on horseback with his tomahawk, but he’s only one of a full band of marauders! Two-Gun can’t fight them all off, even if they are “just a bunch’a renegades that don’t fight much better than squaws!”, according to the opinion of Kid Colt, who jumps onto his own steed bareback while evading the arrows raining around him. Armed again with the pair of six-shooters that had remained draped across his horse, Colt assists Two-Gun in chasing off the enemy, and then surrenders his pistols to the keep of his captor, to demonstrate his cooperative commitment to the law. Both Rawhide and Two-Gun applaud this good behavior. Our bad guys arrive the next morning, shortly after the Kids have broken camp, so they quickly close the gap as the Kids, all riding with free hands now thanks to the display of good will, get within a mile of Tucson. “Pig” and his boys need to finish this fast, before they’re all too close to town to get away with the surprise slaughter they have planned. Complicating the timing, Two-Gun’s horse is spooked by a rattlesnake and tosses his rider. It’s Rawhide to the rescue:  This gives “Pig” and company the chance to make their attack. Faced with overwhelming force, Two-Gun finally relents, and tosses his prisoners their irons. “Then, one by one, Pig Porter’s gang begin to fall before the deadly accuracy of the Kids Three…” A sniper manages to sneak behind the trio, but Colt spots him and takes him out. As the gang scatters, Rawhide’s got a bead on “Pig”, himself, but Two-Gun interrupts: “He can’t clear you if he’s dead! We gotta take him alive!” “Pig” is comically but impressively climbing the sheer cliff wall, with Two-Gun climbing after him. Nearing the top, “Pig” tries to bribe Two-Gun, but the only price Two-Gun’s willing to take is “Pig’s” hide! “Pig” tries to kick Two-Gun off the cliff, but he persists and engages in hand-to-hand combat when Porter drops his gun. In the heat of battle, Porter denies knowing about the stage heist, gets in a lucky blow, and high-tails it away from the relentless Two-Gun, oblivious to the fact that he’s running towards the edge of the cliff. He plunges to his demise:  The trio part ways, Two-Gun having lied about getting a confession, but convinced he did the right thing. Comments: Ogden Whitney! Out of all the artists drawing the western team-ups we've focused on in this thread, for my viewing enjoyment, Whitney easily tops Lieber, Ayers, and Keller. Whitney, of course, is best known for his work at publisher ACG, specifically their cult classic Herbie. But he could do a heckuva western, and did a really nice run on Two-Gun Kid in this stretch. I love the expressiveness of his supporting characters, like "Pig" Porter and Matt Hawk's sidekick Boom-Boom, who has unfortunately not gotten much attention in this thread. Whitney's got solid compositions, good attention to detail, convincing sets, all just a fine set of pages to peruse. Despite this thread, I'm not a particular fan of Marvel's westerns, but if I were to pick the highlight in the 1960's, I'd go for Whitney's Two-Gun run. Well, that was in many ways a very familiar story. Arrest at the scene of the stage robbery, framed in Tombstone as the culprit...didn't Rawhide go through this just four issues ago? Two-Gun's lack of trust in the Kids runs against the readers' expectations, what with the previous team-ups showing both Rawhide and Colt to be good guys in Two-Gun's eyes, but I'll go along with it looking a lot more suspicious this time...except for the missing lock box, which you'd think Matt Hawk would have looked for again, given that it was key to his prior defense of Rawhide a few months prior! This will prove to be the last of the 1960's Western Team-Ups in the full tradition of pairing up headline stars like Western Team-Up itself would return to in a few more years. Marvel was changing its trend of applying superhero stylings to its westerns; Ghost Rider, the most unabashed application of the superhero mold to the western setting, was on its last legs after an already brief run. With the return to a more conventional approach, the team-ups stopped and the Kids went back to being loners. Not that it helped much, as the titles relied more and more on reprints, with the venerable Kid Colt Outlaw going to full reprints for most of the 1970's, as did Two-Gun Kid. Coming Attractions:But this isn't the end of the Western Team-Up trail, pardners! The "New Wave Westerns" of the 1970's will lead to some new kinds of team-ups, as well as one in the classic sense of those I've been focusing on so far. But before we get to those, there is one more from the 1960's I want to take a brief look at, in which a Marvel western superstar teams up with some other familiar comic book headliners...but probably not the ones you're thinking of!
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 29, 2020 12:01:07 GMT -5
MWGallaher, thanks for another excellent entry here. I love that you're digging up these otherwise forgotten gems. Two additions, if I might. The title of the story seems like a direct reference/ homage to/ rip-off of the 1961 John Ford Western, "Two Rode Together," starring James Stewart and Richard Widmark. And the premise of the two good guys being arrested for a crime committed by others is indeed a hoary trope, one any lover of B Westerns would have been familiar with. Nearly every Tim Holt Western relied on that device. The only difference between the Holt films and the Rawhide Kid stories in particular is that Holt always had a partner (sometimes a couple of them), and that he played different characters in each film.
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Post by brutalis on Nov 29, 2020 13:14:12 GMT -5
Sing ye high the praises of Ogden Whitney and Jack Keller! As a youngster with no knowledge of earlier comic history I was still acutely aware that both of them help portray a more "western" essence and human element than Kirby, Ayers and others. This is why both Two Gun and Colt were favored more strongly than Rawhide for myself.
Now as an adult and more knowledge of comic history I even more fully appreciate and enjoy the different "flavor" found in both artists. They add a touch, tone and style which reflects and evokes those 1950's western movies and I love that. I really wish I was a child in the 50s and 60s so I might have been buying up EVERY western comic that was being published but I am so happy to grab any and every affordable to my bank account western comic I can find today.
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 30, 2020 10:14:47 GMT -5
Rawhide Kid #61, December 1967 “Shotgun to Deadwood” by Gary Friedrich/Dick Ayers/Vince Colletta/Sam Rosen  Summary: We open with Rawhide protecting the stagecoach he’s riding from a band of attacking Indians riding and shooting arrows at them. The driver is hit and Rawhide takes the reins while inside, the passenger Reverend leads a prayer. The driver is suffering an arm injury, but manages to hold to the trail while Rawhide fires on the attackers, who inexplicably fall back. Halting safely, the Reverend and his lovely young daughter disembark, and the driver is revealed to be a woman, specifically, “Calamity Jane” herself. Rawhide knows her reputation and agrees to ride shotgun the rest of the way to Deadwood, the better to protect the uneasy young lady. In the cliffs above the stage, the Indians plan an ambush, in order to catch Calamity Jane for their employer, the white man known as “Black Jack”.  On the ride, Rawhide and Jane get to know each other, with Jane sensing Rawhide’s outlaw rep is undeserved. The Reverend has recognized Rawhide from reward posters, but the daughter thinks Rawhide is husband material! When the “redskinned varmints” attack anew, they succeed in subduing the stage riders, taking Jane, the Reverend, and the daughter but leaving Rawhide unconscious in the grass. Jane pities her captors for “when my Bill gets hold of ‘em!” and the daughter wishes Johnny, a.k.a. Rawhide, were there to save them. Not to worry, Rawhide’s recovered and on the trail, highly suspicious of these Indians’ motives, but he’s interrupted by pot shots from behind. To neither Rawhide’s nor the readers’ surprise, this is Wild Bill Hickock, in search of his girl Calamity…”and the rest’a the passengers!” Hickock gets good vibes from Rawhide, despite his rep, and it seems he’s not on the wanted list around Deadwood, neither. The two ride together in search of the kidnapped.  The Indians have delivered their victims to Black Jack, but find him unable to pay the bounty just yet…seems his plan is to ransom Calamity to get some wampum from Hickock, with the Indians getting a cut. The braves are not happy, especially when Jack strikes their leader…”Next time you push me—I kill you! That is… if Wild Bill not get you first!” Tied to stakes, the kidnap victims fret. The Reverend trusts in the Almighty, and Calamity Jane trusts in her Bill…and herself! She’s already loosed her bonds, discreetly, and is planning to jump her captors at the first opportunity. A short distance away, Hickock and Rawhide are observing from a hiding point, and Bill reveals Black Jack’s motivation: he’s out to get even after being run out of Deadwood for cheating at poker. As Bill and Rawhide prepare to approach, Calamity, now freed, strikes Black Jack from behind. The Indian restrains her (wanting his pay, eventually). Somehow, though, Black Jack figures he’ll scrape up what he owes his partners in crime on his own, because now, he’s gonna straight-up shoot Jane point blank right then and there! But unlike the readers, Black Jack didn’t realize Bill was close enough to disarm him with a well-aimed shot to the pistol hand, and the Indian didn’t reckon on Rawhide depriving him of Calamity Jane, who he was using as a human shield to protect him from Hickock’s six-shooter. Fightin’ breaks out between our hero and the Cherokee, while Black Jack cowardly retreats to the bushes, only to be tackled by Wild Bill. The pair of rescuers get their rewards: kisses from Calamity for Bill and from “the daughter” for Rawhide.  Rawhide has to decline her suggestion of hitching up, since, as an outlaw, he’s got a constant target on his back. As proof, one of the Indians attempts a stab to the back right then, an attack Rawhide easily cuts short with a well-aimed shot to—again—the weapon hand. Time to ride away from potential love and a new pair of friends, into the western horizon! Comments: Yeah, this one’s a bit out of our usual wheelhouse. Wild Bill and Calamity Jane weren’t established headline western stars at Marvel, although they had both made appearances in short stories in comics over the years. Marvel doesn’t appear to have used Wild Bill in its voluminous prior western output, but Calamity Jane had appeared just a few months earlier in Kid Colt Outlaw #136, September 1967, in a 5-page back-up story called “The Wild Ones!” by Sol Brodsky, Tom Sutton, and Artie Simek. Here, she was the last-panel twist, when a young fella who breaks up a saloon brawl turns out to be a lovely young red-haired lady, the famed Calamity Jane. Prior to that, she cropped up very occasionally in other publisher’s westerns, but surprisingly few.  Will Bill had a little more prominence, headlining 21 issues of his own series for Avon in 1949-1954, which at least had some very nice covers...  It wasn’t uncommon for western comics to have their heroes meeting up with historical figures such as Hickcock and Calamity, although inevitably in more mythical interpretations, as depicted here, than authentically. In structure, though, this story is fully in keeping with the team-up format we’ve been looking at, and if one of the Marvel western characters had a steady girl, he could’ve been slotted fairly easily into the partner position for this tale. And had western comics been stronger, I could easily imagine Marvel making this pair into co-stars in their own feature. Coming Attractions: Looks like we've got one more team-up that doesn't quite match up with the expected pairing of established Marvel feature headliners, but it's a quite interesting one that serves as a fore-runner to the types of stories Marvel would be bringing to their corner of the old west in the years to follow. It'll feature a might-have-been western star with a memorable monicker...see you down the trail a ways!
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Post by MDG on Nov 30, 2020 10:34:17 GMT -5
Will Bill had a little more prominence, headlining 21 issues of his own series for Avon in 1949-1954, which at least had some very nice covers... Graham Ingels cover |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 30, 2020 12:08:19 GMT -5
The Calamity Jane back-up story you write about reminded me that in issues 6, 7, and 8 of DC's All-Star Western, a character named Billy the Kid appeared. Turned out that Billy was a she, Billy Jo Bonney. And unlike so many other Western characters, she was seeking revenge on the owlhoots who murdered her father Also, if anyone's interested, one of those Avon Wild Bill stories was reprinted in Skywald's Blazing Six-Guns 2. I'll be sorry when we get to the end of this trail, MWGallaher. |
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 30, 2020 14:11:31 GMT -5
The Calamity Jane back-up story you write about reminded me that in issues 6, 7, and 8 of DC's All-Star Western, a character named Billy the Kid appeared. Turned out that Billy was a she, Billy Jo Bonney. And unlike so many other Western characters, she was seeking revenge on the owlhoots who murdered her father. Also, if anyone's interested, one of those Avon Wild Bill stories was reprinted in Skywald's Blazing Six-Guns 2. I'll be sorry when we get to the end of this trail, MWGallaher . Oh, yeah, DC's Billy the Kid, that weird little short series from John Albano and Tony de Zuniga that took over the cover banner of "Outlaw" despite having no connection to the previously-running headline series of the same title (which included art from favorites Gil Kane and Jim Aparo) in All-Star Western! Both had the rather unique characteristic of coming to conclusions, making it look almost intentional that ASW was dedicated to different miniseries under the umbrella designation of "Outlaw". (Looking back over that run, I see that Billy's debut in issue 6 included a back-up short starring DC's version of wild Bill Hickock, as written and drawn by Gil Kane!) And I'm managing to push off "the end of this trail" further and further...I reckon there's at least six more separate features (across several different publication titles) that need exploring to different degrees before we've got a thorough overview of Marvel's different flavors of western team-up, as well as a return to at least one of the features that's seen considerable attention already in this thread. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 30, 2020 15:06:24 GMT -5
The Calamity Jane back-up story you write about reminded me that in issues 6, 7, and 8 of DC's All-Star Western, a character named Billy the Kid appeared. Turned out that Billy was a she, Billy Jo Bonney. And unlike so many other Western characters, she was seeking revenge on the owlhoots who murdered her father. Also, if anyone's interested, one of those Avon Wild Bill stories was reprinted in Skywald's Blazing Six-Guns 2. I'll be sorry when we get to the end of this trail, MWGallaher . Oh, yeah, DC's Billy the Kid, that weird little short series from John Albano and Tony de Zuniga that took over the cover banner of "Outlaw" despite having no connection to the previously-running headline series of the same title (which included art from favorites Gil Kane and Jim Aparo) in All-Star Western! Both had the rather unique characteristic of coming to conclusions, making it look almost intentional that ASW was dedicated to different miniseries under the umbrella designation of "Outlaw". (Looking back over that run, I see that Billy's debut in issue 6 included a back-up short starring DC's version of wild Bill Hickock, as written and drawn by Gil Kane!) And I'm managing to push off "the end of this trail" further and further...I reckon there's at least six more separate features (across several different publication titles) that need exploring to different degrees before we've got a thorough overview of Marvel's different flavors of western team-up, as well as a return to at least one of the features that's seen considerable attention already in this thread. I can't think of too many instances of DC Western stars teaming up, and certainly not back in the late 50s/ early 60s. One exception was the team of Johnny Thunder and Madame .44, I guess, but the latter had been created not as a separate feature, IIRC, but as a supporting character in the final days of the Johnny Thunder strip. It was only much later that we saw the likes of Scalphunter, Jonah Hex and Bat Lash teaming up, which was too bad, because there were plenty of interesting Western types back in the heyday of DC Westerns. DC, though, never applied the Marvel approach of giving its Western characters super-heroic overtones. And by the time that Marvel was doing so, the DC Westerns were on their way out or had vanished. By the time All-Star Western and Jonah Hex came along, the model for DC was the Eastwood/ Leone spaghetti Westerns and their more realistic, violent style. |
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