AFTER A BREAK of eighteen months, Two-Gun Kid was revived by the new creative team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, as a replacement for the cancelled Amazing Fantasy . But this version of the cowboy hero was informed by a different sensibility. Where the original Two-Gun Kid had been a straight-faced cowboy hero, riding the range and righting wrongs, this new Kid was not only a different person - a lawyer, rather than the farming son of a sheriff-turned-rancher - but he had a secret identity, as well. The origin of the Two-Gun Kid - Stan doesn't mention in the script how long it takes retired gunslinger Ben Dancer to train tenderfoot Matt Hawk from dude to death-dealer, but we can presume it's several months, at least. The mask, alias and costume are also Ben's idea, making Matt a wild west superhero. Click to enlarge. Even though superheroes were relatively new at Marvel Comics in 1962, Stan Lee figured that superhero trappings were ripe for a revival, because he gave the ne...
BACK IN THE LAST CENTURY I earned my living in the magazine business ... and the prevailing wisdom at the time was that you didn't ever - under any circumstances - mess with the magazine's logo. In fact, any kind of change to the magazine's masthead was frowned upon, and even re-branding exercises were viewed with much suspicion. In the last entry in this blog, I looked at the many times that Marvel Comics changed their magazine's logos during the 1960s ... it all seemed so much easier then. But even less acceptable was the idea that you could transform the comic's logo for just one issue for, oh I don't know ... Dramatic Effect. From a marketing perspective, that's an even bigger risk than changing the logo as part of the natural evolution of a magazine's masthead Strangely, though this blog focusses on Marvel Comics, and I've always maintained Stan Lee was far more willing to experiment with different approaches to comics and storytelling than his...