Western Comics Focus: Two-Gun Kid

Troy D. Smith

I've always loved superhero comics, and I've always loved western comics. So it should come as no surprise that one of my favorites has always been the Two-Gun Kid, who has a boot firmly planted in each camp.

The Two-Gun Kid debuted at Marvel Comics in 1948. He was Marvel's second continuing western character- the first had been the Masked Raider way back in 1939's Marvel Comics #1 -and the first to have his own ongoing title, which lasted until 1977.

There were two different versions of the Kid. The original, which ran from 1948 to 1962, was a blond cowboy named Clay Harder. Harder was in many ways a generic sort of figure, a wandering gunslinger who righted wrongs- he carried two guns, one of which had belonged to his father and the other to the outlaw who had murdered him.

In 1962, however, in Two-Gun Kid #60, the character was completely rebooted (into the hero Marvel fans are familiar with.) In this new version by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Clay Harder (Two-Gun Kid) was a character who appeared in dime novels, and inspired young Matt Hawk to take on the guise in "real life." He wears the same all-black outfit, with two distinctive additions: an orange-and-black-spotted vest, and a mask. (He also, like Clay Harder, rides a horse named Cyclone.) Hawk is a young lawyer from Boston, who -after his arrival in the West -is trained by a famous gunfighter, Ben Dancer. This version of the Kid is similar to the superheroes that Lee and Kirby were then creating: a masked man with a secret identity, using his alter ego to go after the villains who escaped justice in the courtroom where he works by day, with a regular supporting cast (all this making him different from the Lone Ranger, whose "alter ego" John Reid is believed dead by the world, and more like Zorro.)

The Two-Gun Kid was a staple of Marvel's western line in the 1960s and 70s, along with the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, the Outlaw Kid (a lot of kids, there), and the Ghost Rider / Night Rider / Phantom Rider, all of whom he interacted with regularly.

In the late 1970s he was one of the western heroes who teamed up with the time-traveling Avengers, striking up a close friendship with Hawkeye (see our interview with writer Steve Englehart)... but unlike the other western heroes, the Two-Gun Kid joins the Avengers when they return to the 20th century, where he becomes a man out of time. After a few adventures with the superhero group, he returns to his own time (taking a cashe of modern weapons with him, as revealed in the miniseries Sunset Riders -in which it is revealed he married after his return, but his wife died in childbirth.)

He later shows up in the great miniseries Blaze of Glory (see our interview with John Ostrander)... he has dyed his hair blond and now goes by the name Clay Harder, having abandoned his mask and working exclusively as a lawyer. However, he joins his old partner the Rawhide Kid (along with a slew of other Marvel western heroes) for one last grand adventure.

Sometime later, Matt Hawk is plucked from the timestream and returned to the modern world, where he becomes a frequent ally of She-Hulk (for those unfamiliar with the character, Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk received a blood transfusion after an accident... from her cousin Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk. Superhero-ness ensues, as the young lawyer gains the power to transform into a green Amazonian powerhouse, while retaining her normal intelligence and her law practice.) The Two-Gun Kid -who has traded Cyclone in for a flying motorcycle donated by his pal Hawkeye -at first serves as a private detective for She-Hulk's law firm, and later becomes an independent bounty hunter. Thanks to the time travel angle, then, the character occasionally pops up in stories set in the modern-day Marvel universe as well as flash-back stories set in the Old West.

One of my favorite such stories involved that other masked lawyer, Daredevil, who alter ego attorney Matt Murdock was attempting to solve an old case from the 1870s that had been begun by Matt Hawk.

In 1996 I had a chance to meet Stan Lee, and had him autograph my copy of Two-Gun Kid #60, the first appearance of the Matt Hawk version of Two-Gun Kid. The book triggered a nostalgic response -"I remember when Jack drew this very picture on the cover! I haven't seen one of these in ages!" A few weeks later I interviewed Lee over the telephone (for this article), and after introducing myself said "You probably don't remember me, but-" "Of course I remember you," he said. "You're Two-Gun! How's it goin', Two-Gun?"

Needless to say, that particular autographed item is one of my most treasured possessions.

Western Comics Focus: Steve Englehart

This month our focus is on Steve Englehart, a name very familiar to comics fans. In the 1970s he had a four-year run as scripter of The Avengers, creating some of their most memorable storylines, and several other Marvel titles as well, including a very well-regarded run on Doctor Strange and co-creating (with Jim Starlin) the character of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Later in that decade, teamed with artist Marshall Rogers, he had an acclaimed run on DC's Batman in Detective Comics, returning the title to some of the sensibilities of the 1930s/early 1940s: a darker, more brooding hero, and a Joker who was once more the homicidal maniac he was introduced to be before descending into camp. In the 1980s Englehart introduced Coyote, a Native American-themed hero. In more recent years he has worked as a novelist, writing the Max August Magikal Thrillers (The Long Man, The Point Man, The Plain Man, and The Arena Man.)

Along the way he has penned his share of western heroes.

Steve Englehart has graciously agreed to answer some questions for us:

Were you a fan of westerns when you were growing up? What about western comics?

When I was growing up, Westerns were a staple on TV and in movies, so they were part of everyday life. I liked them fine, watched a lot of them, but I was not fixated on them, so I didn't search out Western comics.

One of your first scripts at Marvel was uncredited, in an issue of Two-Gun Kid. Can you tell us about that?

Not much. I haven't thought about in a very long time. As I recall, Ogden Whitney both drew and wrote the issue, but editor-in-chief Roy Thomas wasn't satisfied with the writing and asked me to massage it.

You’ve said that the Ringo Kid was your favorite of Marvel’s “true cowboy” heroes –why is that?

He had one of the most interesting back stories, along with the Black Rider. The others were all pretty generic. And Ringo's story was told in the 50s, at a high point for Western comics, with art by Joe Maneely. He hadn't been revived in the 60s, when Marvel's emphasis was on superheroes. So getting to revive him sent me straight to the 50s stuff.

In the Avengers story “Go West, Young Gods,” you merged superheroes and cowboys into one tale, doing it again years later in a West Coast Avengers arc that included some controversial elements. How do you think that genre-blending worked? [side note: as a young reader, Avengers 142 blew my mind.]

I think it worked great. I brought the Two-Gun Kid back from the original meet-up because he was the most superhero of the cowboys, and really wanted to explore a man from a simpler time in the modern realm with supervillains - i.e., I would have continued to blend the genres. But I was just too busy right then and couldn’t get to it before I left Marvel the first time. (In 1999, I reworked the idea into a proposal called "Guns of the Y2K" for DC, but they didn't want it.)  

The Avenger Hawkeye was central in both those story arcs- was that a coincidence, or was there something inherent in the character that made him suited to a western setting as well as a modern one?

It was some of both. He just happened to be there, but his arrow thing was the closest to a Western hero so his presence helped shape what I did. 

You collaborated frequently with the late Marshall Rogers. What can you tell us about him?

Marshall was a combination of laid back and obsessive. He was never in any hurry to finish a job, but he wanted everything he did to be the best he could make it. Our last published job together, after doing the unpublished dark detective iii, was BLACK RIDER, an update of the old character. Putting the hero in New York when horses were still on the streets was something we were looking to play with a lot. I do love taking the Westerns out of their established environment. 

Your Native American-themed Coyote has been very influential. Why do you think that is? How did you get the idea for the character? [interesting side note: though their personalities are very different, Coyote and your version of the early Shang-Chi are similar in a lot of ways- I had never noticed that before. The naïve youth, sheltered throughout his life, entering a world he does not understand, etc.]

Well, the Coyote legend obviously predates my take on it, so a lot of credit goes to Paiute spirituality. But the character that came out of that was (a) an actual Native American, and (b) fun. I see where you're going with Shang-Chi, but he was never "fun." He was very composed and committed, while Coyote was always loose, and sometimes too loose. Also, since Coyote is owned by me, he gets to wander through other things I write, but Shang-Chi, most unfortunately, is trapped by the fact that Marvel no longer has the rights to Fu Manchu and so can't be reprinted. 

Is there a western character you haven’t written for that you could see yourself doing, if the opportunity arose?

Not necessarily. But I'll take the opportunity to toss in my Western stories story: one night at a party, I had a long talk with Gil Kane about his many years on Western comics, and he allowed as how his favorite Western writer was Ernest Haycox. I was unfamiliar with Haycox, but I started searching for the old paperbacks. One day, on one of those collector's dream days, I went into a bookstore in Glendale, California, and found that Haycox's agent had just sold them his entire office reference collection of Haycox of paperbacks, which I then bought for myself. Haycox's most famous story became the move Stagecoach, and the interesting thing is, the character (Ringo) that John Wayne played in the film sounded exactly like John Wayne, only the story obviously predated the movie. In my opinion, Wayne based a lot of his persona on Haycox's writing - which went on to inspire Gil Kane - which went on to entertain me. (This was after I had done my Westerns.) So if I did a Western, it'd probably be strongly influenced by Haycox, because that's a pedigree I can believe in.

Finally, are there any new or upcoming projects you’d like to direct our readers’ attention to?

Just my series of novels - Long Man, Plain Man, Arena Man - which have no pictures but still have what I hope are decent stories - and guest appearances by Coyote and Scorpio Rose.

 Many thanks to Steve for his time... go check out his Max August novels!

Also, the Black Rider story he did with Marshall Rogers is reprinted in the very nice hardcover book MARVEL WESTERNS.