This is the column that I wrote about the Western comics I was talking about yesterday:

Howdy, buckaroos! It's been a spell, but I've got a powerful hankerin' to strap on muh guns, saddle up, and hit th' ole reviewing trail agin, so why'nt you ride along side me a-whiles, so's I kin tell you 'bout:

KID COLT, OUTLAW #144
RAWHIDE KID #73
TWO-GUN KID #90

and jes' fer a change o' pace,

CAPTAIN SAVAGE AND HIS LEATHERNECK RAIDERS #4.

Ratings:
bad <- Lower'n a snake's belly; Ain't worth the rope to hang; 'bout as much use as teats on a bull; don't make me no nevermind; right decent; mighty fine; Sell muh clothes I'm a-goin' to Heaven! -> good

KID COLT, OUTLAW #144: Mighty fine. No credits, other than to Stan Lee. Frankly, until I read these, all these Marvel Western heroes were kind of jumbled in my mind. Kid Colt, it turns out, is the blond one who wears a red shirt, a blue bandanna around his neck, and a black-spotted white vest and a white hat. He is, without a doubt, the fastest gun in the West (and the most accurate)--gun-fights against him are presented as no contest, which I found interesting. In the first, five-page, story a gun-slinger seeks to make his reputation by riding into town ahead of Kid Colt and swearing to the townspeople to kill Kid Colt on sight. The sheriff of the town rides out to warn Kid Colt, who decides to bypass the town and avoid the fight. When Kid Colt doesn't show up, the gunslinger rides out after him, forces him to duel--and Colt shoots his holsters off his belt before he has time to draw. The gunslinger rides back into town, humiliated, and swears never to wear guns again. There are three more stories in this issue, two of them KID COLT, and one generic. What I found oddly compelling about these stories is they are all unabashed morality plays, directly addressing the questions of what is right and proper behaviorm, whether it's Kid Colt allowing a law-man to arrest him for something he didn't do, or him convincing a young gunslinger wannabe that the outlaw's life is not what it's cracked up to be. Compared with many of today's comics, where the only way to tell the good-guys from the bad-guys is by their costumes, I found it refreshing.

RAWHIDE KID #73: Right decent. Written and drawn by Larry Lieber, inked by John Tartaglione. Edited by Stan Lee. The Rawhide Kid is a fairly short red-head, who dresses in a double-breasted leather jacket (I think it is), with four big buttons down either side of the central panel, and a red-and-yellow triangle arm-band design worked into it. Much is made of his outlaw status, and his need to keep ahead of the law, and this issue's story (20 pages) is about him being "adopted" by an elderly couple who are taken with his resemblance to their own dead boy. The husband is gunned down in a hold up, and the Rawhide Kid spends the rest of the issue tracking down and confronting the killers (two he kills in gunfights, two he defeats in a fist-fight and turns over to the law, and one he shoots the holster of the belt--apparently a standard tactic in these). Basically think THE FUGITIVE, without the one-armed man. I didn't find this as interesting as KID COLT, I think because the emphasis is much less squarely on the morality-play aspect, and more on the characters--ordinarily I'm all for character drama, but not with such stock characters.

TWO-GUN KID #90: Mighty fine. Written by Denny O'Neil, drawn by Ogden Whitney, edited by Stan Lee. The Two-Gun Kid wheres a blue shirt, and orange vest with black sports, a blue hat, and a blue mask (of the wrap around the eyes with two holes cut in the cloth variety). This was the only one of these that I really have any nostalgic feelings for. I had forgotten about it entirely, but when I saw Two-Gun's side-kick Boom-Boom and his battered stove-pipe hat, I felt a glow of recognition. Frontier lawyer Matt Hawk dons a mask to fight crime as The Two-Gun Kid when the law isn't enough. In the first story (nine pages), Matt's side-kick Boom-Boom is framed for robbery, and sentenced by a fake judge to be hanged--fortunately Matt figures out the judge's secret when the judge fails to notice that "Delerium Tremens" is not a real legal term, and changes to the Two-Gun Kid and rescues Boom-Boom and the _real_ judge. In the second story (written by Stan Lee, Art by Jack Kirby, Inking by Dick Ayers), Moose Morgan, Gunman At Large is terrorizing the community's school. He doesn't want his kid to go to school, and so decides that he won't let any of the other children go either. Matt's sweetheart, the school-marm (ah, the Old West, where men were men, and women were school-marms...) asks him for help (little knowing that secretly he is The Two-Gun Kid, whom she detests), and he takes her to the Sheriff, but the Sheriff won't do anything unless one of the parents signs a complaint, and they're all too scared of Moose to do that. Matt stands up to Moose, and gets beaten, since he can't reveal his...aw, you get the picture. But when Moose wants to burn down the school-house, the Two-Gun Kid shows up, and teaches Moose (and his boy) a lesson. But is it a victory? "Too bad, though," says one of the townpeople, "that it took _another_ roughneck to tame _that_ one!" "That's right! What did it _really_ prove?" "'Cept that one gunman can be tougher thatn another!" Two-Gun replies, "Prove? I'll _tell_ you what it proved! It proved that you can't ever rely on brute strength, because there's _always_ someone stronger! It's only through _knowledge_ that a man can ever _really_ be superior to another! The kinda knowledge that yuh find in that little red school-house!" As he rides off he thinks, "I hope they understand--I hope I convinced them! They think of me only as the Two-Gun Kid, a rough and tough brawler! They don't suspect that I'm _also_ Matt Hawk, attorney and scholar! They'll never know how important I think education is!"

CAPTAIN SAVAGE AND HIS LEATHERNECK RAIDERS #4: 'bout as much use as teats on a bull. Gary Friedrich, writer, Dick Ayers penciller, Syd Shores inker, Stan Lee editor. I found this pretty confusing for a war story. Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders (a six-pack of stereotypes) are teamed up with some Japanese soldiers against the forces of Hydra, under command of Baron Strucker, who are planning to steal an A-bomb and conquer the world. A snooze-fest from start to finish, and almost a self-parody of bad comic-book writing. "Onwards for ze glorious cause of FREEDOM, Oui?" "The Americans fight like DEMONS! Only a MIRACLE can...AAGHHHH!"

Pick O' Th' Pack: TWO-GUN KID.

Well, that 'bout wraps it up fer now, buckaroos, so I'll jes' be ridin' off into th' sunset, with a hearty "Hiyo, Syllabus, Away!."

Amusingly enough, it was that exact issue of Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders that was recapped in Roger Stern's recent Marvel Universe #1.