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Well, Jonah Hex it ain't.
Like I said in my review of that particular splatterfest, it wasn't like I was a fan of western comics throughout my growing up days of comic book droolathons, but I sure remember this Atlas/Marvel-era Two-Gun guy's comic book proudly plunked on many a comic book newsstand that I've prowled. I guess it did well enough that the title could exist merely on reprints long after the Kid was retired to the ol' cowboys home, and given how the reprints ran on for quite some time there must have been an audience for this particular brand of western thrills. But as to WHY well, I certainly couldn't have given you an answer then, or perhaps now for that matter. I guess those athletic countrified kids who were stoopid enuff to go hunt, fish and run around in the wilds were still plentiful while smarties like myself knew better enough to just plop in front of the tee-vee with snacks and other suburban slob stimulants.
Anyhow, the original Kid (don't be fooled since there were two Marvel characters who used the same name and the same logo for that matter) seems more like your typical comic cowpoke than some Old West psychopath you would have seen in the comics once the seventies got into gear. This is way pre-Clint Eastwood wop-a-dago westerns so don't expect the blood 'n carnage that the genre has been known for since the days of THE WILD BUNCH...just the same tried and true that had gone with these sagas until the advent of the "adult" westerns that brought a new raw-edge to the old tried and true.
This Kid's really some wranglin' type (no, not that) named Clay Harder (well, with a name like that maybe he is!), and he's the kind of cowboy who even gave his horse a name ("Cyclone" --- well at least it ain't Dobbin) and sings as he rides about. Kinda reminds me of a funny story from back when I was a teenbo or so when I remarked to my father as to why did cowboys like Gene Autrey, the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers named their horses yet Marshal Dillon, Paladin and all of those newer tee-vee guys didn't. All I got was a stony glare.
These stores are definitely stuck, and stuck like your car is halfway into a huge glop of mud and you can't get out, in them pre-adult western days. You know that especially when some character utters the word "varmint", and while I'm at it you can just get it within your feelers that this is strictly for the juvenile crowd given how the same handfulla plots are trotted out over and over complete with the crooked guy or gang that's running the town and the beaut of a gal who's either kept woman of the local boss or (if innocent looking enough) the daughter of the sheriff or a farmer. Eh, if those early-sixties Marvel monster stories could subsist on the same few recycled plots so can these and while I'm at it, so what smartypants!
Needless to say, I'll take this over a whole slew of pre-Stan Goldberg MILLIE THE MODELs with a few PATSY WALKERs thrown in for good measure. An' this collection even has the original ads for everything from rubber masks to home moom pitcher projectors, all left intact just like it was still the fifties and you were some suburban slob of a kid won'drin what do do with your eentsy-weentsy savings before mom found out about it and made you put it in the bank! Given that your pittance could have gone towards something "useful" rather'n some "cheap plastic junk" all I gotta say is my, you readers surprise me with your selfishness!
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