Writer: Bill Mantlo
Artists: Herb Trimpe, John Severin, Dan Bulanadi
1985
This series was launched in 1985, which was when I first seriously began reading and collecting comics. I remember seeing this being shilled, and I remember having absolutely no interest in it. Even superheroes at the time were a bit of a stretch for me. The only reason I gave the dubiously attired supes another chance was that I was spending a few weeks at my grandparents in suburban Chicago, and had little to do but walk to the comic shop to keep me from going crazy. (I had picked up a Spider-man comic a few years prior, but it was one where he wrestled with his lame-ass inner demons and I decided to stick solely to reading Conan, a guy who only fought external demons, and without being a whine-ass about it.)
So jump ahead over 25 years, and I found myself checking out a comic shop from the necessity of having to get out of my sister’s house in suburban Detroit. Now I have a pocketful of money, so I no longer have to debate whether I should get a regular 75 cent comic, or splurge an extra quarter for a copy of Marvel’s Epic line’s Groo (cartoon barbarians were also very acceptable in my book), but I still can’t bring myself to drop $4 a comic. Fortunately few people in Detroit have money, so there as I walked in were sets of comics bundled up and in addition to being quite reasonably priced, were selling “two for one.” For $1.50, I get 4 issues of The Rawhide Kid and 4 issues of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch mini-series, a price that would have even tempted my 12 year old’s mentality into giving a guy with a red neckerchief and white spats a try (and this was way before they “made him” gay in 2003) as well as comics about a girl and a red, green, and yellow robot.
Now, however, I find the Rawhide Kid interesting because it’s different. One thing you feel quite quickly when you are sifting through a bargain bin somewhere is how much the comics all seem to be the same. I guess looking at the regular stands should be the same thing, but perhaps a $4 cover price and a better display make the latest “team-book” at least look better than the busy-bee, spandex rave happening on every cover of Wildcats, Gen 13, or the glut of X-mags that seem to predominate the bargain bins.
And to the end of finding something different, I’m willing to accept lameness as a “positive,” quality, (as do, thankfully, my friends). Because, make no mistake, it was a lame idea bringing The Rawhide Kid back...because, well...why? Did people really miss him? Perhaps they thought that people would want a break from the Secret Wars II stuff that was tying all the regular titles together? Maybe Bill Mantlo begged to write the series (like he did for The Micronauts after seeing the toys)? I really would like to see the sales figures on the series to see how many people picked it up.
First off, the cover flaunts the lamest part of sanitized westerns: the shooting of guns out of people’s hands. If it was a comics code issue, I don’t quite get why Conan could gut someone with a sword, but good cowboys merely could make the perpetrators feel silly for a bit, standing there gunless before they were inevitably tied up, so it must have been a choice. But yeah, it’s just stupid. Oddly enough, however, they use it to form a major, though clumsy, motif through the series (we also see him wrestle with his age and development, “I’ve never felt like a Rawhide Man.” and occasionally make comments about his arthritis in between acrobatics).
In his first encounter, we see the Kid avenge his uncle’s death (his UNCLE BEN!) by tracking down his killer and shooting the guns out of their hands without looking, over his back shoulder. In fact, the dialogue often draws attention to the more unbelievable sharpshooting with dialogue that would be appropriate for a radio play, but not really necessary next to a picture of the action.
Panel: RK riding and shooting guns outta people’s hands. Balloon one: “H-how can he ride and shoot like that at the same time.” Balloon two: “Why, he’s the Rawhide Kid!”
Panel: RK shooting the gun outta passenger’s hand through a window while clinging to the outside of a train. Balloon one: “Mercy! The Kid shot the gun out of that gent’s hand—while clinging to the top of a moving train.”
But what’s weirder is that there’s another flashback sequence where this amazing shot, just plugs a guy and 25 years later wonders whether “mebbe” he could have shot the guns out of the guy’s hand, though both his friend and the narrative box assure us that he “did what he had to do.”
The bulk of the series revolves around a wandering RK having trouble with his gunfighter reputation and an “understudy” who wants to learn how to shoot like him. In issue two, I thought the series was going to grow some balls as we learn why the understudy needs to protect himself from the Pinkertons who are following him.
“The foreman, Sis hated him, but he promised to get her out of the slaughterhouse if she’d only...well, anyway--she did--and he broke his promise to get her out of that place. I went after him with a cleaver. He fell in the sausage pit. Guess somebody somewhere had him for breakfast.”
But no, issue three has a sequence where it looks more like the understudy is preventing a rape, not just avenging a non-payment for services rendered contract.
But regardless, RK teaches him how to shoot guns out of people’s hands rather than kill them, saying “Helps me t’ sleep a mite easier at night,” but eventually after lamenting the plight of drunk Indians in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (and flirting with Annie Oakley), teaching a black bounty hunter not to betray “his own people” by convincing him to help RK defend a black town from roving, white- hooded (in the interior pages) Klu Klux Kowboys (charming him with such lines as “Don’t call me ‘Kid’ bounty hunter—an ah won’t feel tempted t’ call you “boy”), the Pinkertons finally show up. RK is knocked out by a lucky and plot advancing sucker punch from the understudy who goes out to face them all by himself. Woozy, RK comes out and shoots down all the enemies of his past, which turn out to be the Pinkertons when he comes to clarity, but while in his daze, it’s explained to him by the ghost of his understudy that he has to forget his past and accept his fate.
And given the bodies of the 15 or so Pinkertons littering the town, perhaps Marvel was hoping that his fate was to be reintroduced as a more edgy character, like the ascendingly popular Wolverine and Punisher of the time period, but given how uneven most of the themes were, perhaps RK and the Marvel family finally accepted that shooting guns out of people’s hands is fucking lame.
By: Frank "Peaches" McGirk
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