Marvel was thrumming with energy when they pushed out a revised Two-Gun Kid onto the comic book marketplace. This Kid was a western variation on the superhero tropes which was working so well for the company at that moment -- the revised Rawhide Kid had been a big hit, so the duo of Lee and Kirby tried it again. Greenhorn lawyer Matt Hawk took over the comic with its sixtieth issue.
Before Hawk, there had been Clay Harder introduced way back in 1948. But his kind of western heroics felt somewhat tired compared to the more Kirby-infused energy of this new hero. Coming to the west to bring law and order to the chaos of the wild west, Matt quickly learns he is up against a more vicious foe than he'd anticipated. He runs across old gunslinger Ben Dancer who trains the eager Hawk in the ways of the west and Matt takes on the masked identity of the Two-Gun Kid while keeping his own self hidden behind the milquetoast veneer of the timid lawyer from the east. It was a pretty nifty premise, time-tested and it held its own for several years.
Here are some choice covers featuring the new and improved Two-Gun Kid.
I came to fully appreciate the Two-Gun Kid when Steve Englehart brought him and many other Marvel western stars into a time-twisting Avengers epic. Two-Gun liked the 20th Century and came forward with Hawkeye as his amigo and the two traveled around together for a time. They even had a one-shot adventure together in the one hundredth issue of Marvel Tales. (Check out this Groovy Link for that story and hang around for a Thanksgiving feast while you're at it.) Eventually he returned to his time, but certainly this proved he was in many ways Marvel's most modern western star.
Only the debut issue of Matt's adventures have been collected as part of Marvel Firsts - The 1960s. I'd buy more if they put them out in a handy format.
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Was just looking at my copy of #68. GREAT cover and the interior art was very good. Have #77 also and MAYBE the other two (or HAD them). I pretend I was one of them (Rawhide or Two-Gun Kid) in the backyard using the picnic table as a prop when I was a kid. Both #69 & #77 have problems with the covers on my copies, but it was more about reading them back then. Used to want to get all of the western issues with Kirby art inside.
ReplyDeleteI've thought about collecting all the Rawhide Kids at different times, but it's a bigger task now than I'd like to take on. The reprints will serve, though the later Lieber stuff may never get reprinted.
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