Featuring: Two-Gun Kid
Release: January 27, 1948
10 cents
10 pages
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| INTERLUDE | Two-Gun Kid #60 | |
| Fantastic Four #8 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #86 |
I got two guns that bark and roar,
they’re shooting day and night,
I got two guns and wish I had four,
because I like to fight!
No date appears on the cover.
The GCD credits the art to Syd Shores and Vince Alascia. The writer is unknown.
We are introduced to the Two-Gun Kid and his horse Cyclone.
We don’t learn Kid’s given name this issue. At some point we learn it’s Clay Harder.
The Two-Gun Kid comes to town and finds Brett Dawson misbehaving. Brett learns soon that the Kid is the wrong guy to mess with. Well, he doesn’t learn it very well. And won’t until it’s too late.
Gloria loves Brett and seems oblivious to how evil he is.
But when he slaps her after she asks him not to foreclose on some folks’ homes, she puts it together and tries to leave him. He’ll kill her first.
Some think that discussion about toxic masculinity is new, but this 1948 comic spells out the concept pretty well.
In the end, things don’t end well for Brett. Lucky for Gloria the Two-Gun Kid was passing through town.
This issue also features a second Two-Gun Kid story, and introduces another western hero known simply as The Sheriff.
During World War II, Marvel’s staples were superhero and humor comics. Toward the end of the war, they started to get into “girl” comics, with characters like Patsy Walker, who debuted in Miss America #2, 1944. After the war, superheroes waned in popularity, and the characters started disappearing from newsstands, to be replaced with more girls. Millie the Model, Tessie the Typist, etc.
By 1947, with superheroes on the decline, they were ready to branch into other genres. One was crime. Sub-Mariner’s title was replaced with Official True Crime Cases Comics, and soon several similar titles would follow.
January 1948 Marvel dipped its toe into the western genre with Annie Oakley and this title. Annie Oakley’s title ran for only 4 issues, followed by a brief revival in 1955. Two-Gun Kid ran for 10 issues, but returned in 1953 and would be a mainstay on the stands for the next quarter century.
I’m doing a bit of retroactive continuity on this blog. I think it would have been good to read this in the early days of our reading order, so you’ll see in the reading order that I placed this after Fantastic Four #8, though some may notice this post came out long after that one.
This is a good spot to meet Two-Gun because that’s the month Two-Gun Kid #60 came out. Which I’d like to talk about next.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 53/100
Characters:
- Two-Gun Kid
- Cyclone
- Brett Dawson
- Gloria
Story notes:
- Two-Gun Kid carries two guns and likes to sing.
- A bar patron, Brett, shot a man in the arm for not having a drink with him. Kid confronts the patron.
- The Kid orders milk.
- Inn and blacksmith won’t deal with an enemy of Brett Dawson like the Kid.
- Brett Dawson inherited the wealth of his father Ralph.
- Dawson is the fastest draw in town and owns the mortgages of most people. Those who cross him get dead or homeless.
- Brett slaps Gloria for suggesting he not foreclose on the Rogers, who have lived in their house for 37 years.
- The Kid makes short work of Dawson’s goons then spots Dawson trying to kill Gloria. Dawson plans to cut the rope while Gloria is on the bridge.
- Two-Gun outdraws Dawson and shoots his hand.
- The bridge collapses and the Kid saves Gloria but not Dawson.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| INTERLUDE | Two-Gun Kid #60 | |
| Fantastic Four #8 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery #86 |
