Jump to content

Rawhide Kid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Otto4711 (talk | contribs) at 03:39, 2 August 2010 (afterelton.com source is not a "forum posting" and there is nothing whatsoever that implicates the miniseries as non-canonical). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Rawhide Kid
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceRawhide Kid #1 (March 1955)
Created byStan Lee (script)
Bob Brown (art)
In-story information
Alter egoJohnny Bart
Team affiliationsAvengers
West Coast Avengers
Notable aliasesJohnny Clay

The Rawhide Kid (real name: Johnny Bart, originally given as Johnny Clay) is a fictional cowboy in Marvel Comics' shared universe, the Marvel Universe. The Rawhide Kid was a heroic gunfighter of the 19th Century American West, who was unjustly wanted as an outlaw. He is one of Marvel's most prolific Western characters, rivaled only by the Two-Gun Kid and Kid Colt. He and other Marvel western heroes have on rare occasions guest-starred through time travel in such contemporary titles as The Avengers and West Coast Avengers. Beginning with a limited series in 2003, the character is depicted as gay.

Atlas Comics

The Rawhide Kid debuted in a 16-issue series (March 1955-Sept. 1957) from Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics. Most of its covers were by highly acclaimed artists, generally either Joe Maneely or John Severin, but also Russ Heath and Fred Kida. Interior art for the first five issues was by Bob Brown, Jack Kirby's future successor on Challengers of the Unknown, with Dick Ayers on the reins thereafter.

Marvel Comics

After a hiatus, the Rawhide Kid got revamped for the ramping-up Marvel by writer Stan Lee, legendary penciler Jack Kirby and inker Ayers. Continuing the Atlas numbering with issue #17 (Aug. 1960), the title now featured a diminutive yet confident, soft-spoken fast gun constantly underestimated by bullying toughs, varmints, owlhoots, polecats, crooked saloon owners and other archetypes squeezed through the prism of Lee & Kirby's anarchic imagination. As in the outsized, exuberantly exaggerated action of the later-to-come World War II series Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, The Rawhide Kid was now a freewheeling romp of energetic, almost slapstick action across cattle ranches, horse troughs, corrals, canyons and swinging chandeliers. Stringently moral, the Kid nevertheless showed a gleeful pride in his shooting and his acrobatic fight skills — never picking arguments but constantly forced to surprise lummoxes far bigger than he.

Through retcon, bits of and pieces of the Atlas and Silver Age characters' history meshed, so that the unnamed infant son of settlers the Clay family, orphaned by a Cheyenne raid, was raised by Texas Ranger Ben Bart on a ranch near Rawhide, Texas. Older brother Frank Clay, captured by Indians, eventually escaped and became a gambler, while eldest brother Joe Clay became sheriff of the town of Willow Flats; neither were in the regular cast, and each died in a guest appearance. Shortly after Johnny's 18th birthday, Ben Bart was murdered; Johnny, an almost preternaturally fast and accurate gunman, wounded the killers and left them to be taken into custody. A later misunderstanding between the Kid and a sheriff over a cattle rustler the Kid wounded in self-defense led to the hero's life as a fugitive.

Kirby continued as penciler through #32 (Feb. 1963), while helping to launch the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and other iconic characters of the "Marvel revolution". He drew covers through issue #47. Issues #33-35 were drawn by EC Comics veteran Jack Davis, and some of the very last color comics he would draw before gaining fame at MAD. After several issues by Ayers, followed by a single issue by longtime Kid Colt artist Jack Keller, Stan Lee's brother Larry Lieber, who'd previously scripted the first appearances of The Mighty Thor, The Invincible Iron Man and other superhero features plotted by Lee, began his long run as writer-artist of the series. Lieber comments, "I don't remember why I wanted to do it, particularly. I think I wanted a little more freedom. I didn't do enough of the superheroes to know whether I'd like them. What I didn't prefer was the style that was developing. It didn't appeal to me....Maybe there was just too much humor in it, or too much something. ... I remember, at the time, I wanted to make everything serious. I didn't want to give a light tone to it. When I did Rawhide Kid, I wanted people to cry as if they were watching High Noon or something.....I'm a little unclear about leaving the superheroes and going to Rawhide Kid. I know that at the time I wanted — what's the expression? — a little space for myself or something, and I wanted to do a little drawing again."[1]

As superheroes become increasingly ascendant and sales of all companies' Western titles dropped, The Rawhide Kid became primarily a reprint title, though often bearing new covers by such top artists as Gene Colan, Gil Kane and Paul Gulacy. It ended publication with issue #151 (May 1979).

The Rawhide Kid later appeared as a more middle-aged character in a four-issue limited series (Aug.-Nov. 1985) by writer Bill Mantlo and penciler Herb Trimpe.

2000s treatments

The Rawhide Kid reappeared in the four-issue, 2000 limited series Blaze of Glory, by writer John Ostrander and artist Leonardo Manco, and a 2002 four-issue sequel, Apache Skies, by the same creative team.

In contrast to the character's standard look till then — a small-statured, clean-cut redhead — these latter two series found him grizzled, taller, with shoulder-length dark hair, and wearing a slightly less stylized, more historically appropriate outfit than his classic one. In fact, Blaze of Glory specifically retconned that the naively clean-cut Marvel Western stories of years past were merely dime novel fictions of the characters' actual lives.

A controversial five-issue limited series, Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather, was published by Marvel's MAX imprint, in 2003. Written by Ron Zimmerman, and drawn by veteran artist John Severin, the series depicted the character as homosexual, with a good portion of the dialogue dedicated to innuendo to this effect. The series was labeled with "Parental Advisory Explicit Content" warning on the cover.[2] In explaining the decision, editor Axel Alonso said, "We thought it would be interesting to play with the genre. Enigmatic cowboy rides into dusty little desert town victimized by desperadoes, saves the day, wins everyone's heart, then rides off into the sunset, looking better than any cowboy has a right to."[3]

In June 2010, Marvel released the first issue of a new Rawhide Kid mini-series, The Tombstone Blues. In this series, the Kid and his posse (consisting of Kid Colt, Doc Holliday, Annie Oakley, Billy the Kid, Red Wolf and The Two-Gun Kid) track the villainous Cristo Pike after he and his gang kidnap Wyatt and Morgan Earp. The Tombstone Blues is again written by Zimmerman with art by Howard Chaykin.[4] Asked how the sexual orientation of the lead character is handled, Marvel's Manager of Sales Communications, Arune Singh, stated that the Kid is still gay and that there will be "nods to his sexuality, but the story is more focused on the complicated history of their posse and their mission in this series. There will be allusions to his love life but nothing explicitly explored."[5]

Collected editions

The characters stories have been collected into individual volumes:

  • Marvel Masterworks: Rawhide Kid (hardcover, Marvel Comics):
    • Volume 1 (collects Rawhide Kid #17-25, 223 pages, June 2006, ISBN 0-7851-2117-X)
    • Volume 2 (collects Rawhide Kid #26-35, 272 pages, December 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2684-8)
  • Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather (120 pages, Marvel Comics, softcover, August 2003, ISBN 0-7851-1069-0, premiere hardcover, July 2010, ISBN 0-7851-4362-9)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "A Conversation with Artist-Writer Larry Lieber", conducted by former Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, Alter Ego vol. 3, #2 (Fall 1999)
  2. ^ Paul, Ryan (03-19-2003). "Rawhide Kid #1-2". PopMatters. Retrieved 2010-06-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "The Wilde West". The Advocate. 02-04-2003. p. 23. Retrieved 2010-07-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)
  4. ^ "PREVIEW: The Rawhide Kid #1" (Press release). Marvel Comics Group. 06-03-2010. Retrieved 2010-06-23. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Masaki, Lyle (06-23-2010). "Are gay comic fans ready for the return of "The Rawhide Kid?"". AfterElton.com. Retrieved 2010-06-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

References

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rawhide_Kid&oldid=376697902"