Owlhoots and Hombres: Western Hero Appreciation

[Derek Metaltron]

I feel like one of Marvel's biggest mistakes with Secret Wars was electing to toss 1872's Red Wolf into the present and not make 1872 an ongoing comic like Renew Your Vows. They'd have had a great opportunity to mix both the classic Western heroes and the 1872 versions of the modern ones that way.

[Herowatcher]

Howdy!

This thread had me wondering if Marvel had any female western heroes.
I found one so far by the name of the Arizona Girl aka. Arizona Annie.
She first appeared in Wild West #1 (March 1, 1948).

She sounds like one tough lady too.

[Sandy Hausler]

I feel like one of Marvel's biggest mistakes with Secret Wars was electing to toss 1872's Red Wolf into the present and not make 1872 an ongoing comic like Renew Your Vows. They'd have had a great opportunity to mix both the classic Western heroes and the 1872 versions of the modern ones that way.

And, unfortunately, that book got cancelled. Too soon for my taste.

Sandy Hausler

[Sandy Hausler]

Another Western character who has not gotten his due is Caleb Hammer. Only had one issue of Marvel Premiere (I think) and guest starred a few times since.

Sandy Hausler

[matt levin]

Aaaaha! I KNEW there was another Caleb Hammer fan out there...somewhere. And I've complained long before this, I agree strongly with Derek that "one of Marvel's biggest mistakes with Secret Wars was electing to toss 1872's Red Wolf into the present and not make 1872 an ongoing comic." Now about this Arizona Annie: here's a character just WAITing for a return. She could be Marvel's big step back into westerns, perhaps with a Wynonna Earp-style 'back story.'

[Tulku]

This thread had me wondering if Marvel had any female western heroes.
I found one so far by the name of the Arizona Girl aka. Arizona Annie.
She first appeared in Wild West #1 (March 1, 1948).

That is a darn good question. Arizona Annie/Arizona Girl is the only clear one I can find, although Atlas Comics did run a series featuring Annie Oakley.



But, as an actual historical figure, I am not sure she counts as a "Marvel" western hero.

To be honest I thought I came across another one once upon a time when I was researching some other heroes...but I have been unable to confirm that or locate anybody other than the Arizona Girl. At one time, when thinking about how to revive the genre, I was considering a female hero who would be inspired by the Two-Gun Kid (after he supposedly died). She would be the school marm of Tombstone and would take on a masked identity to battle the bad guys. Because who would suspect the pretty, shy school marm of being a bold, sharp-shooting masked hero?

[Herowatcher]

If this is a new updated look for Arizona Annie I definitely like the tight pigtail hairstyle on her.

[BlackClaw]

Which western Marvel hero could you guys see getting their own film? Because I think it could be interesting if the MCU had a western under it's belt.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Maybe not exactly a western hero but I like to see an MCU movie featuring the native american superhero American Eagle!

[Tulku]

Which western Marvel hero could you guys see getting their own film? Because I think it could be interesting if the MCU had a western under it's belt.

Another interesting question. The best known characters (Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid) are pretty generic in terms of background stories and probably would not make a particularly interesting movie. There is not much to build on with the Two-Gun Kid unless you want to go into his time travel adventures. As I discussed earlier, the Ringo Kid has angles that might make for a good movie. But, thinking it through, I think the best bet for a good movie would be the Gunhawks: Reno Jones & Kid Cassidy. I would definitely go to see that!

[ed2962]

If this is a new updated look for Arizona Annie I definitely like the tight pigtail hairstyle on her.

What is this art from?

[ed2962]

Another interesting question. The best known characters (Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid) are pretty generic in terms of background stories and probably would not make a particularly interesting movie. There is not much to build on with the Two-Gun Kid unless you want to go into his time travel adventures. As I discussed earlier, the Ringo Kid has angles that might make for a good movie. But, thinking it through, I think the best bet for a good movie would be the Gunhawks: Reno Jones & Kid Cassidy. I would definitely go to see that!

Perhaps that could be the hook, that they're part of such a common archetype that everyone knows it might be appealing. Have the group that appeared together in Avengers 142, and do a Wild Bunch style adventure only more clean cut and play up the fact that it's not the real wild west but a movie about the myth of the west.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Interesting proposal! You might be on to something there.

[Tulku]

The Strange Case of the Ringo Kid Reprints

I've been meaning to post this for some time now. I find the reprint history of the Ringo Kid curious. Now, before we start, I am only talking about the American reprints. The stories also appeared reprinted in the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Norway, etc. but I am not concerned about them.

The Ringo Kid made his debut in Ringo Kid Western #1 in August 1954. That series ran for a total of 21 issues, ending in September 1957. The word “Western” was dropped from the covers after issue #4, but I find it easier to call the entire 1950s run “Ringo Kid Western” (or, for this post, “RKW” for short) to distinguish it from the 1970s reprint.

The Ring Kid stories were generally about 5 or 6 pages long and each issue of RKW contained three or four Ringo stories, often with an unrelated filler story. The original run of RKW had a total of 75 Ringo stories. However, other western comics published around the same time carried individual Ringo stories. Thus, you could find Ringo Kid stories in Frontier Western (issues #s 3 &4, June & August 1956); Western Trails (issues #s 1 & 2, May & July 1957); Wild Western (issues #s 38 and 40-57, November 1954 & January 1955 to September 1957); and finally Gunsmoke Western (issue #53, July 1959). These totaled another 24 stories, for a grand total of 99 Ringo Kid stories published during the 1950s.

In January of 1970, Marvel started reprinting the stories in The Ringo Kid (or “TRK” for short). Once again, multiple Ringo Kid stories appeared in each issue. So, for example, TRK #1 reprinted the Ringo stories from RKW #10; TRK #2 reprinted the Ringo stories from RKW #9; and so on. TRK ran for a total of 30 issues but....well, that’s the point of this post.

By TRK #18, all the Ringo stories from RKW #s 6 thru 21 were reprinted, as well as the stories from RKW #4. They had not reprinted the stories from RKW #1 thru #3, or #5. This may seem odd, since especially RKW #1 was the origin story for the character. However, this seems to have been a victim of the Comics Code Authority. The Code came into effect around the same time as RKW was being printed, and I think it is safe to say that RKW #6 and on were written in compliance with the Code, while the earlier books were pre-Code. In the pre-Code stories, the Ringo Kid was killing people. Post-Code, he would avoid killing and would be endlessly shooting guns out of people’s hands. In the 1970s, Marvel was still following the Comics Code Authority, and I guess they decided to avoid reprinting the pre-Code stories.

Except that they did reprint the stories from RKW #4. I don’t know what made this an exception. In each of the three stories, the Ringo Kid does kill people. In one story, involving his protecting a wagon train from “Flip” Cullen, the caption reads that “the Ringo Kid’s mighty Colts picked off victims with deadly accuracy” and the picture shows two men on horseback reacting to being shot. Now perhaps we could argue that he just disarmed them and the phrase “deadly accuracy” was not meant to be taken literally. But “Flip” ends up being shot in the back by a man that Ringo Kid had helped earlier, and there is no indication that he is going to be punished for it. That’s not exactly Comics Code material. The next story has Ringo Kid and his father helping to defend a fort from renegades led by “One-Eye” Mapes. The caption reads that Mapes “lost his life in a last, desperate assault”--and the drawing shows Ringo and his father both gunning Mapes down. The final story has the Ringo Kid tracking down the crazed ex-stage coach driver Leech. And the Kid shoots him, and not just to wound. Ringo’s father has the last words: “Too bad you had to gun him down...but it was his life or yours!”

So that is mystery number one of the Ringo Reprints: why did these stories from RKW # 4 pass muster to be reprinted in the 1970s under the Comics Code, while apparently the stories from #s 1 to 3 and #5 never saw the light of day? I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

But back to the reprint history. As I say, by TRK #18, the book had reprinted all the available Code approved stories from RKW. But TRK #18 only reprinted one story from RKW #21. Its other two stories do not appear to have ever been printed before! Similarly, TRK #19 contains three Ringo Kid stories that had never before seen print! I hesitate to call them “new” stories because they were clearly created back in the 1950s. Joe Maneely undoubtedly did the art for most (if not all) of them, and he died in 1958. Nevertheless, these 5 stories were NOT reprints. Apparently, they were “inventory stories” that were never used because RKW and the other Western mags went out of print.

So, for the record, adding these five “non-reprint” stories to the list means that the grand total of existing Ringo Kid stories comes to 104.

Now, you would think that the fact that Marvel went out of their way to dig out these inventory stories was a good sign for TRK--like that Marvel actually cared about the title. They went through the trouble to find and print these inventory stories, even though there still existed those 24 stories from other Western mags, almost all of which were written after the Comics Code took effect. So you would think that they would continue TRK with reprinting those other Ringo Kid stories.

But that’s not what happened.

After the amazing non-reprint stories from TRK #19, things came to a crash. Beginning with TRK #20 (May 1973), they began reprinting stories that had already been reprinted in TRK!!! Thus, for example, TRK #20 reprinted some stories that had already been reprinted in TRK #1. TRK #21 reprinted a story from TRK #1 and two others from TRK #2. After issue #23 (November 1973, and reprinting stories from TRK #4), TRK went on a publishing hiatus. The next issue (#24) would not come out until November 1975--and then it reprinted, once again, the stories contained in TRK #1 (and #20)! Even worse, TRK #25 reprinted stories from TRK #23 (i.e., the stories already reprinted in TRK #4)! Why Marvel did this is another mystery. Granted, over two years had passed between #23 and #25, but that is a poor excuse to re-reprint the stories, particularly when there other stories from the 1950s that had not been reprinted.

So, as I said, TRK stopped after issue 30, still just reprinting itself. The early RKWs remain unreprinted, and the 24 stories from other Western mags remain unreprinted. And yet Marvel did find and print inventory stories from the 1950s.

I can’t explain it. Of the existing 104 Ringo Kid stories, TRK only bothered to print/reprint 68 of them, and 8 of those were actuall reprinted THREE TIMES during the run of TRK!

So why weren’t the other stories reprinted? It’s another mystery. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

[danielsan52]

Maybe not exactly a western hero but I like to see an MCU movie featuring the native american superhero American Eagle!

I’d really like to see Texas Twister and Shooting Star get similar costume updates.