DC's Revolutionary War Character

For some reason, very few comics have been set back in the revolutionary days. Obviously there are some problems with stories of the past connecting with young readers, but that never stopped Westerns or WWII comics, which were hugely popular in the 1950s.

Tomahawk was a white man who had been raised by American Indians, so he had the woodsman abilities of the natives combined with an Anglo appearance. For most of his run, he was drawn by Fred Ray, a Revolutionary War buff who insured historical accuracy in his artwork. He first appeared in Star Spangled Comics #69, and within a few years had bumped Robin, the Boy Wonder, off the cover of that magazine. He was added as a feature in World's Finest, and later graduated to his own book in 1950.

The timing was pretty good, as with his coonskin cap and leather fringe, Tomahawk was also able to pass for a Western character, and he often found himself in scrapes with the natives as shown on the cover above. But he was also nimble enough to avoid cancellation in the early 1960s, as Westerns went out of style.

How did he do this? Well, like most DC characters, he began battling an assortment of monsters, dinosaurs and undergoing weird transformations.





And yes, for many of those years, the editor of Tomahawk was Jack Schiff, who was in the middle of inflicting similar nonsense on the readers of Batman. Speaking of costumed heroes, Tomahawk picked one up as well:



I believe that at that time, Miss Liberty was the second earliest DC costumed hero, beaten out for the top spot only by the one-shot Tiger Man from the caveman era.

He also accumulated a "family", known as the Rangers:



In the late 1960s the monsters and dinosaurs disappeared in favor of more traditional Western fare, but sales were still sinking, and in 1970 DC retooled the magazine to feature Tomahawk's son. But that stopgap only worked briefly and in 1972 the magazine was canceled altogether.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

Update: Bill Jourdain did a podcast dedicated to Tomahawk a few years back. Listening to it now myself, but these are always a fun listen.

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Single Issue Review: Two-Gun Kid #70

Looks like Stan decided to give Two-Gun Kid the supervillain treatment here.

Although it is commonly forgotten, the 1950s were when Westerns reigned supreme, both on TV with Gunsmoke, Bonanza and Davy Crockett, and in the movies with major stars like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. The comics quickly followed suit, and the 1950s featured an abundance of comics dedicated to Western themes. DC, for example, published almost 300 such comics with titles such as Tomahawk (yes, arguably more of a revolutionary war comic, but with many Western features), Western Comics, All-American Western and Hopalong Cassidy.

But the bloom was definitely off the yellow rose of Texas by the time the 1960s came along. DC slashed their Western titles in favor of the rapidly growing WWII segment, publishing fewer than a third of the total they had in the 1950s.

Marvel (publishing then as Atlas Comics) also put out an enormous quantity of Westerns and other 1950s fad titles. I don't have a complete list of the 1950s Atlas westerns but it would not surprise me terribly if they didn't put out as many or more as DC did in that decade. Two-Gun Kid was one of the rare series that lasted from the Atlas era to the Marvel era.

Although these multi-panel covers are somewhat rare, I would guess that a lot of them have the same idea: Introducing a character with a unique power. For example, consider Amazing Spiderman #4:



So the idea is not new but the execution is above average and pretty interesting. Two-Gun Kid breaks up a train robbery. When Harry Cane, the leader of the gang tries to escape, TGK chases after him. They get caught in a twister but the leader survives and happens on a shaman:



Lightning. Hits a bunch of chemicals. And gives the nearby person super speed. Where does Stan come up with these ideas? ;)

That aside, this actually turns out to be an interesting story. Stan illustrates that the kid has no chance against the villain he's facing:



And indeed the Hurricane shoots him down before the Kid can even draw. But the wound is not fatal and the Kid decides to track him down over time:



Despite Hurricane's rapid speed he's unable to pull away from the Kid and so the stage is set for a showdown:



Hurricane tries to get away again, but this time he twists his ankle in a gopher hole and must call for help from Two-Gun Kid or die out in the desert of starvation.

The story ends on a very odd note. The Two-Gun Kid, in his real identity of Matt Hawk, defends Hurricane in court (just as another lawyer named Matt would often defend the criminals he brought to justice as Daredevil). And the frontier justice turns out to be pretty forgiving:



Say what? The guy pulls off numerous robberies, attempts to kill Two-Gun Kid and an unfortunate clerk, and he only gets probation?

Comments: Entertaining story; according to Wikipedia Hurricane returned to face the TGK again. The art by Dick Ayers is above average.

An aside: I am sure that a lot of young men reading Marvel in the 1960s remember this advertisement:



Quinn certainly does not look like anybody was going to accuse her of being skinny. Now here's the rather odd bit; Quinn O'Hara did indeed have a long career in Hollywood, appearing on many TV shows and in several movies. But oddly, she does not appear anywhere in the credits for The Caretakers. It's possible her part was so minor that it was uncredited, but then it seems hardly worth mentioning in this ad, right? According to O'Hara's own home page, she was a nurse in the film.

The backup story is interesting as well. Jeb Walker is an honest merchant who has accumulated a fair amount of money with his store. Three crooks decide to rob him. He battles them but they get away with the dough by virtue of a trick:



He has one bullet left and he resolves to chase the robbers and kill one of them for stealing his money. But then he sees one of them doubling back to his store. Is the crook going to kill him to make sure that Walker cannot describe the men who robbed him? He has the opportunity to shoot, but won't kill the man in cold blood. And it turns out that the crook has had a change of heart:



An interesting, if somewhat unlikely twist. Art by Larry Lieber (Stan's brother).

Update: See also Booksteve's excellent post on the Two-Gun Kid's supervillains, including Hurricane and a couple others I have not seen before.

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Number 112


The Ghost Rider and the Fire Ghost!


This is story number two from Ghost Rider #1, 1950, published by M.E. Comics.

Gardner Fox, who wrote hundreds, maybe thousands, of comic book scripts in his life, wrote the Ghost Rider stories. Fox loaded the balloons with comic book sound effects. On tier one of page three, for example, we get "Aieeee!" "Ayah!" and "Waughhhh!" There's no record of what English novelist Evelyn Waugh thought of his name being used as onomatopoeia in a comic book.

The artwork by Dick Ayers is up to the usual standards of excellence for this series. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ayers, who freelanced for several of the major publishers, and did outstanding work for each and every one.

I'm not glossing over the racist attitudes toward the Native Americans in this story. There actually were some comic books that used Indians in respectful ways, but not in this story.

Previous postings of Ghost Rider stories were in Pappy's #95 and Pappy's #50.

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Number 95


The Original Ghost Rider


The movie, Ghost Rider, was released yesterday. In it Nicolas Cage plays the Marvel Comics character, a supernatural being with flames shooting out of his head. We Golden Age comics fans know that's not the true Ghost Rider, but some usurper who is using his name.

Ghost Rider #1 came out in 1950 from Magazine Enterprises (ME), a comic book company founded by one of DC Comics' original editors, Vincent Sullivan. It wasn't a big company, but they used some of the best artists: Bob Powell, Frank Frazetta, and the Ghost Rider artist, Dick Ayers.

The original Ghost Rider appeared in his own title for 14 issues between 1950 and 1954. He also made appearances in several other ME Western comics. Ghost Rider was canceled because it wouldn't survive the new Comics Code. In 1967 Marvel Comics published seven issues of a new series, also drawn by Ayers. AC Comics re-named the character Haunted Horseman when they began republishing the original ME stories.

The 1950's Ghost Rider stories were fast paced and entertaining. They had elements of horror, but as in the story posted for Frankenstein Friday in Pappy's #50 sometimes the supernatural turned out to be a trick, like the Ghost Rider himself.

In the origin story the supernatural appears to be real. The "Calico Kid," Rex Fury, hovers between life and death, he is trained by famous dead Westerners. It packs a lot into six pages, and as always, the art is superb.

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