Giant-Size Kid Colt!

I thought by this point in my life, I had seen every Giant-Size title that Marvel had published in the 1970s. Well my mind was blown away by a title I never knew existed: Giant-Size Kid Colt!

Can you imagine? 50 cents for double sized Western action greatness, although in the form of a reprint! The cover to issue #1 was by Larry Lieber and Vinnie Colletta. I see the Colletta inks definitely but I might have been tempted to say it was a Kirby cover. To pump up the adrenaline, Rawhide Kid was the guest star.

Gil Kane drew this glorious cover to issue #2 featuring an Alamo-like last stand by the Western heroes. No inker listed, so did Kane ink himself? Looks like it! Kane had a great affinity for Western covers and I have featured a few in the past.

The third and final issue was another Kane cover showing yet another team-up between Kid Colt and Night Rider. You would almost think this was a team-up title, like Giant-Size Spider-Man which always had a special guest star every issue. Fun stuff! Nuff Said.

Monster Monday: Night Rider original art by Gil Kane

This Marvel character isn't a monster really, but his ethereal image inspired another Marvel Monster to rise in his place.

Night Rider #1 was published in 1974 with this terrific cover by Gil Kane and Tom Palmer.  I was very surprised when I saw this--I had no idea such a title was ever published!  It was a reprint title that lasted 6 issues.  Who was the Night Rider?  You may not have recalled such a Western hero alongside the Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid, or the whatever Kid.

The original art to the Night Rider cover, which recently sold for over $6K on Heritage Comics.

The first issue reprinted "the awesome Origin of the Man Who Rides the Midnight Winds!"  Night Rider was actually the Western Ghost Rider, who has been around at Marvel in one form or another since 1949.  Since Ghost Rider had his own hot-selling title in 1974, Marvel didn't want to confuse readers.  They renamed the character to Night Rider.  But if you read the interior story by Gary Friedrich, Roy Thomas, and Dick Ayers, the character does use his ghostly visage to terrorize the bad dudes.  Since Friedrich and Thomas had both worked on this story in 1967, they also worked on modernizing the new Ghost Rider/Johnny Blaze character five years later in 1972.

I would have bought this comic and declared it a classic if Kane and Palmer had drawn the interiors.  Nuff Said!

Steranko's Marvel Western covers

Here are a couple of Steranko covers that I didn’t even know about until I did some research!

Tex Dawson, the Marvel cowboy who faded off the face of Earth 616.  Apparently his big gimmick was that he had a white German Sheppard (Lightning) and a black stallion (Whirlwind).  Steranko’s cover is really nifty, full-on Wild West glory.

Here’s another cover, to Western Gunfighters #14.  Apart from Matt Slade—who might have been in Steve Englehart’s Avengers time-travel story—I don’t recognize these dudes either.  Nuff said.

Marvels of Gil Kane: Mighty Marvel Western covers

Mighty Marvel Western was a reprint title, featuring the western triple threat of Kid Colt, Two Gun Kid, and Rawhide Kid.  When Gil Kane started doing some covers in the 1970s, the comics were worth collecting for that alone.



I got turned onto this cover to Mighty Marvel Western #44 by one of the Two Morrows magazines.  I can't help but think it's one of the most brilliant covers I've ever seen.  Rawhide Kid looking up at an ambush--his attackers are reflected in the pool he's drinking water from.



The Rawhide Kid is featured on Mighty Marvel Western #40 freeze framed during a shootout in a small town.  An unseen enemy targets his rifle on the Kid from the roof above.  No problem, the Kid's got eyes behind his back.



On the cover to issue #41, the Kid displays his solution to a showdown by shooting the guns out of out his adversary's hands.

There are a lot of logos on these covers...how did Marvel's staff ever fit them all?  LOL!  Nuff said.

Update: Comments from my old MT blog...

1 Comments

By Nick Caputo on November 2, 2010 12:57 PM

I spoke to Gil Kane at a convention some years ago and brought a few covers fro him to sign. When I gave him this one he noted that it was one of his favorite covers as well. I tend to agree.

Nick Caputo

Duck! Gil Kane's Cover for Kid Colt 200!

I love the covers that Gil Kane did for Marvel's western titles.  Here's a great one for Kid Colt 200:

I noticed this black and white inked version over on ComicsFun.  I really like the perspective, taken from the feet of Kid Colt's enemy.  Look at how everything in the background seems frozen in time.  The horse, started by the gunshot.  The people down the street, alarmed by the bullets flying through the air.

Here's the cover in four-color glory:

Notice that Gil Kane's signature,on the sign above the horse in the black and white version, is obscured by the cover blurb "Blazing Western Action."  Nuff said.