Ditko at Charlton: Part 1

ALTHOUGH STEVE DITKO'S BEST-KNOWN SUPERHERO IS SPIDER-MAN, he had drawn another super character several years earlier ... at Charlton Comics.

Captain Adam became Captain Atom at the beginning of 1960. But it wasn't Charlton Comics' first foray into the superhero field.

Captain Atom was created by artist Steve Ditko and scripter Joe Gill, probably towards the end of 1959, and first appeared in the Charlton anthology comic Space Adventures 33 (Mar 1960).

WHO THE HECK ARE CHARLTON COMICS?

In many ways Charlton Comics were similar to Marvel Comics. Both were privately held companies, both were considered among the bottom feeders of the publishing industry paying the lowest rates to their contributors, both had owners with slightly shady pasts (though the same could be said for DC Comics), both handled their own distribution ... they even shared the same ad space agency. Then, going one further than Marvel, Charlton even had their own printing presses.

Charlton had been founded by John Santangelo, an Italian immigrant bricklayer by trade, and lawyer Ed Levy. Santangelo had started publishing song lyric sheets in 1931 at 10c a go, undercutting other publishers of such material who were changing 35c, but he hadn't bothered to seek permission of the copyright holders. The law caught up with him in 1934 and he was sentenced to 12 months in jail. While in prison, he met Levy and the pair decided to partner up and continue publishing lyric sheets on the outside, this time legitimately, starting in 1935 They called the new company T.W.O. Charles as they both had sons of that name. Santangelo moved a printing business he already owned from Waterbury, Connecticut to Derby, his wife's hometown and this formed the basis of what would become Charlton Publishing.

Charlton's earliest publications were music fan mags that included the lyrics to popular songs, printed legally after Santangelo made a deal with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Hit Parader lasted well into the 1980s.

By 1941, the company was publishing two song lyric sheets, Big Song Magazine and Radio Song Hits, under the imprint of Charlton Press. The following year, it launched an actual music fan magazine, Hit Parader, which still included the lyrics of popular songs, and changed its name to Charlton Publications. The magazine was soon selling 600,000 a month and the company added a companion mag, Song Hits, when they bought rival publisher Song Lyrics Inc.

One of Charlton's massive four-colour printing presses in the 129 acre Derby, Connecticut plant. The company would eventually have seven of these on-site.

Because these big four-colour printing presses were only stopped twice a year for cleaning, Charlton had to find ways of keeping the machines running and in 1944 it branched out into comic publishing. Yellowjacket Comics (Sep 1944), a superhero title, launched under the shell company imprint of "Frank Comunale Publications", presumably to prevent any creditors coming after the main company if the comic failed. The following year saw the debut of Zoo Funnies (Nov 1945) and in 1946, Charlton added Catholic Comics (Oct 1946) to the lineup.

No hidden gold here. Most of the creators of these comics are either unrecorded or long-forgotten, though there is a Sid Greene (later a key inker in DC's Silver Age) story in the first issue of Catholic Comics.

As the comics line grew, Charlton turned to comics packager Al Fago (brother of Marvel editor Vince) to supply material. By 1951, Fago had become in-house editor of the Charlton line and set about building a bullpen, both freelance and in-house, including such notables as Dick Giordano, Vince Alascia, Jon D'Agostino, Sam Glanzman, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, Dick Ayers, Sal Trapani and, of course, Steve Ditko.

Inside the Charlton bullpen, some time in the mid-1960s I'd guess ... looks like there's some proofreading and art bodging going on here.

With the increased capacity, Charlton began to add titles in every gentre. Initially, crime romance and space were the main focus, but soon other types of comics followed, including the slightly odd range of hod rod comics.

In 1951, Charlton added two crime titles, Crime and Justice and Lawbreakers, probably because the the success of Lev Gleason's Crime Does Not Pay. But horror also made the cut, as well as ... hot rods.

In 1953, with Fawcett Comics beaten down by DC's ongoing lawsuits against Captain Marvel, Charlton bought out the Fawcett inventory and added a roster of titles, including:

This Magazine is Haunted Strange Suspense Stories Nyoka Gabby Hayes Western Lash LaRue Western Monte Hale Western Rocky Lane Western

Six-Gun Heroes Tex Ritter Western Tom Mix Western Western Hero. Sweethearts Romantic Secrets Romantic Story

Space was quite popular as a genre during the early 1950s, and so was the western ... so why not give Space Westerns a go?

In 1955, with the introduction of the Comics Code, some other smaller publishers threw in the towel and Charlton acquired material and titles from St John, Superior Comics and Simon and Kirby's Mainline Comics. They also published a superhero title, The Blue Beetle, largely reprinting material from the original Fox Comics title of the 1940s.

During 1955, Charlton published the final inventory issues of Simon & Kirby's failed Mainline Comics. None of the titles outlasted the supply of S&K material that came with them.

Around the same time, Al Fago left Charlton and the editorship passed to his assistant Pat Masulli who would guide Charlton for the next decade. Coincidently, also in 1955, the company was devastated by the flooding of their Derby, Connecticut site. The 18-foot flood waters destroyed much of the Fawcett artwork they'd just acquired, along with printing plates and presses, and over a quarter of a million dollars worth of paper stocks. To make matters worse, Charlton had to bear the losses themselves, as it was impossible to get flood insurance at the time in Connecticut.

Other fan favourite comics from the period include the giant 68 page horror titles Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds and Out of This World, along with Tales of the Mysterious Traveller, Konga and Gorgo ... all of which heavily feature Ditko art.

From the mid-1950s until the end of the decade, Steve Ditko became Charlton's mainstay artist, contributing dozens of covers and snappy short stories, not a million miles away from what he was doing with Stan Lee over at Marvel pretty much around the same time.

One interesting aside about Charlton was that they provided publishing services for Harvey Kurtzman's third foray into satire magazines, Humbug. After splitting wth EC around the time Mad became a magazine, Kurtzman and Elder struck a deal with Playboy publisher High Hefner to put out a big budget, all-colour newstand humour magazine Trump. It only lasted two glorious issues. Then in 1957, Kurtzman took another stab at the genre with Humbug, a comic book-size magazine that frequently got lost on the newsstands. The money had been put up by Kurtzman and Elder, with substantial contributions from contributors Arnold Roth, Al Jaffee and Harry Chester. Productions, printing and distribution was handled anonymously by Charlton Publications. Humbug lasted 11 issues.

Unlike its predecessors Mad and Trump, Humbug was a little more political in its stance, and included prose pieces in among the comic strips.

Then, towards the end of the 1950s Steve Ditko and Joe Gill worked up a new superhero character, Captain Atom, that debuted in Space Adventures 33 (Mar 1960). The character seemed popular, because the series would run in the title for the next year and a half until Space Adventures 42 (Oct 1961), when Steve Ditko began to cut back on his work for Charlton in favour of Stan Lee's Marvel Comics.

In 1965, editor Masulli stepped aside in favour of long-time Charlton artist Dick Giordano. Giordano was looking to revive the superhero line and persuaded Ditko to moonlight on the character even as his relationship with Stan Lee and Marvel comics was in decline. As well as drawing Captain Atom once again, Ditko would contribute art to The Blue Beetle, Nightshade and The Question. Other Charlton superheroes of the period included Sarge Steel, Judomaster, Thunderbolt, and Peacemaker.

Although I never even came across any copies of Thunderbolt or Peacemaker at the time, I enjoyed Judomaster, and still have a soft spot for the character today.

By the end of 1967, though, the Charlton superhero line had fizzled out and Giordano left for DC comics, taking many of the artists he'd nurtured with him, including Ditko and Jim Aparo, and writer Denny O'Neil. After Giordano's departure, Charlton shifted its focus to licensed properties like Hannah-Barbera, King Features and Jay Ward cartoons, while continuing its war, horror and romance titles.

Co-founder Ed Levy retired in 1965 and sold his half of the business to John Santangelo. Santangelo died in 1979, and his sons ran the company for a few more years, then sold the superhero characters to DC Comics.

AND ... BACK TO CAPTAIN ATOM

Charlton comics were among the first to follow DC back into the superhero business, helping to kick off the Silver Age. Though only just pipped at the post by Archie Comics, who launched Simon & Kirby's Double Life of Private Strong in June 1959 followed very closely by The Fly in July 1959, Charlton were a close third, publishing their superhero effort Captain Atom in Space Adventures 33 (Mar 1960).

Though The Shield was the revival of a Golden Age Archie character, DC objected the similarities with Superman and forced Archie to cancel the book. The Fly did a little better, lasting 39 issues, though S&K departed after issue 4.

It's an odd serendipity that Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were the first artists to draw non-DC superheroes after the successful launch of the revived Flash in Showcase 4 (Sep 1956), long before Stan Lee assigned them Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man at Marvel Comics.

It doesn't look like Charlton had high hopes for their new superhero, as they didn't even spring for new cover art, instead lifting a panel from Ditko's interior art and repurposing that.

The first Captain Atom strip ran a luxurious nine pages, giving artist Steve Ditko plenty of space to flesh out the story. His depictions of grief when the Air Force personnel think one of their own has perished are especially effective, and I don't think you'll find such a fine expression of emotion in any other comic book of the period.

Though Captain Atom is wearing his familiar gold and red uniform on the debut issue's cover, the interior art depicts him in a blue uniform. Ditko's use of the nuclear symbols to depict Atom's power is pretty cool and very much in keeping with the Cold War themes that would emerge later in the run.

The remainder of the story details Captain Adams' transformation into the superbeing Captain Atom, his instant acceptance by the US president as a secret weapon (though the secrecy aspects would be slowly eroded over the early part of the character's series), and an exhibition of his seemingly limitless powers.

The atomic symbolism crops up again, as Captain Adam reconstitutes his physical form back on Earth. That feat of teleportation wouldn't be repeated, as his preferred mode of transport going forward would be flying at Mach 3 speeds, leaving a trail of nuclear fairy dust.

The president and Sgt Gunner Gosun are recurring background characters, but neither is given much to do beyond their contributions to moving the plot forward. Interestingly, Captain Atom's first actual adventure would occupy just the final page of the story. This would be a shortcoming of all the Space Adventures episodes ... limited space resulting in too-short tales with unsatisfying conclusions.

Captain still didn't rate new cover artwork, or indeed the lion's share of the cover. But note the use of red, white a blue on the Captain Atom logo, some years before another Captain would use the same idea.

Most of the Captain Atom run in Space Adventures would concentrate on, well, space adventures, with the Captain concentrating on battling alien invaders. The Captain's second outing in Space Adventures 34 (Jun 1960) had him rescuing a Russian astronaut when his communist masters rush him into space with no clear way to bring him back. Only the intervention of Captain Atom saves the Russian's life and causes him to realise the inhumanity of the Soviet regime.

In this short tale, Captain Atom shows empathy with and mercy towards an "enemy", caring more for the Soviet cosmonaut's life than the pilot's own people. Teaching kids such basic human decency doesn't seem like a priority any more.

This is especially fascinating because, just less than a year later, in April 1961, the Soviets were the first to launch a man into space. Yuri Gargarin orbited the Earth once in the spacecraft Vostok 1 and caused some denting of American pride.

Just the one six-page Captain Atom story in Space Adventures 35. Despite appearances, "Spies from Another World" isn't a Captain Atom tale, but a short fantasy story that wouldn't be out of place in a Marvel comic of the same period.

The Captain Atom tale in Space Adventures 35 (Aug 1960) was an altogether more whimsical affair. Billy, the son of Sgt Gosun, has been sleeping for unusually long periods, then describing vivid dreams when he awakens. 

"The Little Wanderer" is a slight and ultimately unsatisfying story about a child whose dreams about intelligent monster birds in space turn out to be real.

Suspecting there's something more than a child's vivid imagination, Captain Adam investigates as Captain Atom and discovers that Billy is traversing the universe with a benign space bird creature called Loga. There really isn't any conflict to resolve. Captain Atom just states that Loga will return Billy to his parents now and that's the end of the story.

I think this is the first time Steve Ditko shows both identities of a superhero in the one image, something he'd do repeatedly a few years later during his run on Spider-Man at Marvel.

Space Adventures 36 (Oct 1960) had two Captain Atom stories, both five pages, both once more a little thin on the ground. "The Wreck of X-44" had Captain Adam, now identified as a test pilot, blown out of the sky when a saboteur's bomb detonates the experimental X-44 space rocket miles above the Earth. The saboteur is identified, Captain Atom gives chase and captures the spy. That's it.

Other than lacking mystery or suspense, the first story in Space Adventures 36 is very good. The Ditko artwork helps a lot.

The second story has no more substance than the first. When the Soviets launch missiles at an orbiting American weapons platform, Captain Atom destroys the Russian warheads.

There's a lot of wanton destruction of Russian hardware and the American weapons platform survives, but it's never mentioned again and neither the characters nor the narrative captions stop to consider whether an orbiting death star might be a tad provocative.

No effort is spent debating the ethics of the US weaponising space, or whether the Russians might have had a point, which is a bit out of character for Captain Atom, given his efforts to save the life of a Soviet cosmonaut in Space Adventures 34.

The cover art for Space Adventures 37 is a composite of two interior Ditko panels (see below page scans). The first story in this issue, "The Space Prowlers", doesn't rate a cover mention.

Space Adventures 37 (Dec 1960) also sported two Captain Atom stories, each of five pages. "The Space Prowlers" starts off with Captain Adam discovering a spy filching documents from an Air Force base, but soon escalates into panoramas of destruction as his super alter ego wipes out an entire alien battle fleet by detonating his own body in a nuclear explosion.

"The Space Prowlers" packs a lot of spectacular action into its brief five pages. When Captain Atom discovers an alien invasion fleet hovering above Earth, he directs his nuclear powers at it, destroying every last vessel ... which does seem a little extreme.

"A Victory for Venus" is an altogether more eccentric affair, with Captain Atom discovering space mermaids in the vicinity of Venus, destroying any Earth rockets that come close. When Venutians destroy a Terran space camera, Captain Atom meets some comely space sirens who warn him off, then despatch him back to Earth with the odd statement that they will meet again as friends. 

It seems as though this story was setting up some larger future conflict between Venus and Earth, but the series was cancelled before we ever got to see the space mermaids again.

I don't believe the dangling plotline was ever resolved - though there is another lady from Venus in Space Adventures 42 (Oct 1961), who appears to be unrelated to this bunch.

Details of the stories in this issue will have to remain a mystery until I can add a copy of Space Adventures 38 to my burgeoning collection.

I can't tell you very much about Space Adventures 38 (Feb 1961), as I don't have a copy and the stories weren't reprinted in the later Strange Suspense Stories run. However, the issue featured three five-page tales ... "1 Second of War", "Backfire" and "The Force Beyond", all by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko. I'll add further detail here when I eventually track down a copy of the comic.

This cover has a bit of a rushed feel to it, even by Charlton standards. "See Captain Atom", it blares but prefers to keep the details quiet. Or maybe the rest of the cover line fell off on the way to the print room. There's certainly a gap for it.

Space Adventures 39 (Apr 1961) had two five-page stories by Steve Ditko and a seven-pager by Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, "Peace Envoy".

It's not a splashy story, just Captain Atom on a short rescue mission. The dialogue at the end of page 5 suggests that Captain Atom's existence is still supposed to be a secret.

The first Ditko story, "Test Pilot's Nightmare", has Captain Adam trying to warn a stubborn scientist about a failing oxygen valve on a stratospheric plane. His warnings are ignored and it's up to Captain Atom to save the endangered test pilot.

"An Ageless Weapon" is even more low-key, and more of a Captain Adam story than Captain Atom. Though he shows the spies his powers, they never see him in costume, so the secrecy is preserved.

The second Ditko story gives us Captain Adam as a courier of secret documents being captured by East German spies. Adam quickly turns the tables on the spies, captures them and delivers them to NATO headquarters. This short piece is unusual because we don't get to see any Captain Atom action. In fact, Captain Adam's super alter-ego doesn't even appear until the final panel.

Though the cover lines are every bit as sparse as last issue's, at least it doesn't look like the text has fallen off. GCD speculates that the headshot may be Rocke Mastroserio's work, but I don't think it looks anything like his style.

The next issue of Space Adventures, 40 (Jun 1961), gave us a seven-page Captain Atom story, featuring more anti-communist rhetoric and a shorter more whimsical tale in which the Captain cures a young lad's cancer.

I've left out the more mundane exposition pages and focussed here on the action-packed scenes of Captain Atom melting hundreds of Russian missiles. You're welcome.

In the first tale, "The Crisis", Captain Adam first impersonates an elderly diplomat, Mr Haynes, who is scheduled to make an important speech at a conference in Europe. Enemy agents kidnap the fake Mr Haynes and try to coerce him into altering his speech. But the disguised Captain Adam doesn't fear their guns and tells the assembled representatives of the Soviet shenanigans. Of course they shoot him - to little effect - and are quickly arrested. And Mr Haynes is free to give his speech. But an undercover US operative within the Soviet delegation informs Captain Atom of an imminent plot to launch a nuclear strike on the US while the conference is under way. Captain Atom streaks off to destroy the Soviet arsenal in spectacular style and all-out war is averted once again. It's a lot of plot packed into seven pages.

This is the first we hear of Captain Atom using the rays of this particular star to cure his own radiation poisoning ... and the first time we've heard that he even had any ill-effects from his own exposure to nuclear energy.

The second story tells of a normally-reliable Air Force technician who keeps making silly blunders. Captain Adam feels there is more to the story than just carelessness and finds out that the technician's son is seriously ill. As Captain Atom he takes the child on a journey to a mysterious star, whose rays can counteract the gamma poisoning that has made the lad ill.

It's the final appearance of Captain Atom in his original Space Adventures run. Quite why Charlton discontinued the character is unknown. Possible Ditko's increasing workload at Marvel Comics might have been the cause.

Space Adventures 41 (Aug 1961) doesn't have any Captain Atom stories, but he returns in Space Adventures 42 (Oct 1961), in two stories from Rocke Mastroserio and the final adventure of the period from Steve Ditko, "The Silver Lady from Venus".

"The Silver Lady from Venus" is an odd little tale to conclude Ditko's first run on Captain Atom. No reason is given for not returning the Venutian Siren to her home planet, and just dumping her behind the Iron Curtain doesn't seem like an effective solution.

The title character has been broadcasting a television show that seems to have top research scientists mesmerised, enticing them to cause missile launches to fail in a most disastrous manner. Captain Atom investigates and discovers that the Silver Lady is indeed from Venus, but has no relationship to the Venutian sirens we encountered back in Space Adventures 37.

And with that, Captain Atom was gone. Charlton may have been considering carrying on with Rocke Mastroserio as a replacement for Ditko, as they'd published several instalments drawn by him in Space Adventures 39 and 42. But Ditko had been contributing a number of stories to Stan Lee's post Atlas Marvel line, beginning in 1958 and with the addition of two extra fantasy titles - Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, Ditko's Marvel work was expanding at the same time as his Charlton work was shrinking.

By the time Ditko finished his run on Captain Atom in mid-1961, his only two remaining Charlton titles were Konga and Gorgo, both of which he drew until the end of 1963, which was around the same time that Amazing Spider-Man went monthly.

Maybe it was only DC that insisted on exclusivity during the 1960s, as Ditko continued to draw these Charlton titles while he was working for Marvel and even while drawing Spider-Man and Dr Strange.

The Space Adventures run was interesting mostly for the mixture of slick and quirky that Steve Ditko brought to the art. Though not as polished as his later Spider-Man work, there's still a great deal to admire in Ditko's drawing. Unfortunately, the stories are let down by Joe Gill's slapdash scripts, which fail to make the most of Ditko's tight plotting. Gill had done much better work in previous years at Atlas, notably on Kid Colt Outlaw, but here it often seemed to me that he was inserting text into panels even when he had nothing to say ... and from the result, you'd think Gill had Van Gogh's ear for dialogue, especially if you compare it to what Stan Lee was doing over at Marvel during the same period.

Later, as Steve Ditko became dissatisfied at Marvel, he would return to Charlton and the character he helped create at the beginning of the decade. But that's a story for another time.

Next: More of Captain Atom and his pals

More Marvel Cowboys: Kid Colt - Outlaw

BACK IN THE 1960s IT WAS THE SUPERHEROES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION. First, the colourful DC heroes like Flash and especially Green Lantern. Then by the mid-Sixties, I'd focussed more on the Marvel heroes. I was aware that Marvel published other titles from the house ads in the superhero titles, but as I've mentioned before in this blog, I was never much of a fan of war comics or cowboys. It wasn't until much later in my comic collecting endeavours that I began to appreciate that Stan was a pretty good writer in almost any genre.

Marvel had three western characters that stood the test of time. I already covered Two-Gun Kid in an earlier post. Of the remaining two, Kid Colt Outlaw had the longer run, clocking up 229 issues of his own title, as opposed to Rawhide Kid, who only managed 151 issues. Kid Colt also racked up dozens of appearances in Marvel's contemporary Western anthologies, like Wild Western, Western Winners and the odd filler slot in Two-Gun Kid.

Originally titled Kid Colt Hero of the West, the book joined existing Timely Westerns like Western Outlaws and Sheriffs and Wild Western, becoming the sixth Marvel Western comic and the third cowboy to appear in his own title.

Kid Colt Outlaw arrived, full-blown, in his own title on 25 June 1948 (cover-dated August), in a 52-page mag, scripted by Ernie Hart and drawn by Bill Walsh. Who actually created the character is now lost in the mists of time, but as the back story of Kid Colt is so very similar to that of Two-Gun Kid, I wonder if Stan Lee didn't have a big hand in both.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Both Kid Colt and Two-Gun Kid grew up the sons of farmers. Both are pacifists who have sworn not to carry guns. And both take up shootin' irons when their respective fathers are killed. When Blaine Colt's father is murdered and the family farm stolen by crooked Sheriff Yates, young Blaine takes up his dad's six-gun to avenge his murder. But killing a lawman will never end well for the shooter, so young Blaine becomes Kid Colt, Outlaw ... always one step ahead of the posse, roaming the range and righting wrongs wherever he goes.

Marvel wasn't too sure what to call Kid Colt's comic at the start, but quickly settled down to Kid Colt Outlaw. For some reason, Kid Colt 2 (Oct 1948) was 36 pages, while 3 and 4 were 52 pagers. All the covers of this first run were by Syd Shores.

The earliest stories were written by Ernie Hart, which will be a familiar name to regular readers of this blog, and drawn by Bill Walsh, a veteran of the Iger Eisner shop who had largely disappeared from comics by 1953, returning to the medium for a long stint on Treasure Chest in the early to mid 1960s. 

Over the next few issues many Marvel regulars contributed art to the series, with Russ Heath as the main artist and others, like Mike Sekowsky, Gene Colan and Joe Maneely, pitching in, mostly over scripts by Ernie Hart and, later, Leon Lazarus.

There was a three month break between Kid Colt 4 (Feb 1949) and Kid Colt 5 (May 1949) and when the series returned it was again as a 36-pager, though issues 9 and 10 of the book were back to 52 pages, before reverting to the standard 36 pages for the remainder of the run.

Kid Colt 7 (Nov 1949) was the first to break away from the formula of the first few issues, sporting a Russ Heath cover and a book-length Kid Colt story by Hart and Heath.

Judging from the job numbers, issues 5-8 of Kid Colt Outlaw were using up Ernie Hart/Russ Heath inventory stories and Syd Shores covers from the earlier 1948 run, though the frequency was a bit haphazard, with an inexplicable four-month gap between issues 6 and 7, then finally settling down to a bi-monthly frequency with issue 12.

One other interesting thing I found in Kid Colt 4 was an anti-Wertham editorial, presumably written by Stan Lee, in which "The Editors" of the "Marvel Comic Group" take issue with the Wertham's anti-comics campaign a full five years before the Kefauver hearings of 1953. Click image to enlarge.

The stories mostly had Kid Colt foiling schemes to take over ranches by crooked sheriffs and other unsavoury characters (well, it is a cowboy series). One notable exception was the tale "Fight or Crawl, Outlaw" in Kid Colt Outlaw 4 (Feb 1949) which had the Kid forced to take the place of a fighter in a boxing match, by Ernie Hart and Russ Heath. Curiously, an almost identical story had been published a few months earlier, "Death in the Ring" in Two-Gun Kid 3 (Aug 1948), drawn by Syd Shores. The scripter remains unidentified, but there's a good chance it's Ernie Hart - unless Stan Lee wrote the original and asked Hart to rework it for the Kid Colt story. Another Kid Colt trope was the tale in which The Kid encounters a youngster who wants to be an outlaw, for example "The Man from Nowhere" in Kid Colt 9. Then Kid Colt has the task of convincing them that the life of an outlaw is anything but glamorous. The Kid would encounter many, many rannies like this during his long run.

One odd story in Kid Colt 4 involved the Kid meeting a giant - the grandson of Paul Bunyon - in a rare fantasy-tinged tale. Pencilled by Mike Sekowsky, the scripter is unknown, though it does use fantasy tropes that wouldn't be out of place in a Stan Lee script.

I've mashed up some of the pages of Kid Colt 7 here to give a sense of the scope of the tale, with The Kid transported to New York at one point to investigate the source of The Brain's wealth. Click image to enlarge.

One stand-out issue of the earliest Kid Colts was 7 (Nov 1949). The epic 18-page story, "Trapped Between Two Fires", had The Kid battle a ruthless Wall Street financier, The Brain, who decides to take over swathes of the West and set himself up as an absolute monarch, with an actual medieval castle. We also see the Kid travel to New York to take out The Brain's investment company that's funding his mad schemes - though I had to wonder why all the shooting didn't bring the NYPD down on The Kid. We wouldn't see its like again, and I can only surmise that editor Stan Lee experimented with this book-length format and abandoned it until it was revived with Fantastic Four 1 (Nov 1961). 

Kid Colt 9 (May 1950) featured some early Marvel work by the great Joe Maneely. Maneely, had started drawing for Stan Lee's titles the preceding month, focussing mainly on western titles like Western Outlaws and Sheriffs and Whip Wilson ... and contributed art for another epic-length tale in Black Rider 8 (Mar 1950).

Joe Maneely contributed many great covers to the Kid Colt series, though rarely drew any of the interior art. His bold, powerful designs made him a natural cover artist and he drew more Atlas covers than any of Stan Lee's other artists.

Maneely rapidly became Stan Lee's go-to guy for covers and over the next seven years contributed hundreds of covers to Atlas titles and dozens to Kid Colt Outlaw, including 10, 11, 12, 16, 20, 21, 40, 41, 42, 43, 47, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 60, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75-79, 80 and 81. Jack Kirby's first cover for the title was Kid Colt Outlaw 83 (Mar 1959)

It seems odd to retell Kid Colt's origin story so soon after his first appearance, but I guess editor Stan Lee must've had his reasons. The second Kid Colt story also allows for a character to give a speech about how The Kid has never been known to steal and has only ever gunned down those who later proved to be murderers themselves.

Kid Colt 11 (Oct 1950) was something of a reset issue. It presented a newly-drawn version of the "origin" story from issue 1 after little over two years, and a back-up story, "Captured by the Comanches", where an old timer sets an obsessed lawman straight on exactly the kind of man Kid Colt is ... and even though an earlier story established Kid Colt as an ally of the Comanche, in this tale he's at odds with them.

From Kid Colt 9, the old team of Ernie Hart and Russ Heath gradually gave way to scripter Leon Lazarus and artist Pete Tumlinson. 

Lazarus worked mainly on Atlas western titles until the mid-1950s. He had started at Timely as a letterer, then moved into script-writing, joining the Timely staff as an assistant editor under Don Rico. When Rico (and fellow editor Ernie Hart) left the company at the end of the 1940s, Lazarus became Al Jaffee's assistant. One of the writers overseen by Lazarus was Patricia Highsmith, who would later go on to a stellar career as a novelist. Lazarus lost his staff job in January 1950, when publisher Martin Goodman decided that it was cheaper to use only freelance talent, though Lazarus continued to freelance for the company. Gradually, he transitioned away from comics to work almost exclusively for Goodman's "slick" magazines. In 1965, he made a brief return to Marvel Comics, scripting a single Giant-Man story in Tales to Astonish 64 (Feb 1965). As he explained to the fanzine Alter Ego: 

"[Goodman] wasn't sold on [the Marvel Method] of doing stories [in which writers would supply artists with a plot synopsis, rather than full script, allowing artists to tell the story's visual narrative with their own pacing and details]. He became concerned that Stan would have too much leverage over him, and he worried about what would happen if Stan ever decided to leave the company. Goodman wanted other writers as a back-up in case he needed them, so he ordered Stan to use other writers ... Goodman told Stan to, 'Have Leon write stories.' Stan called me and up and asked if I was willing to come in and work there again. ... I didn't want to say 'no' because I was working for Goodman's men's magazines, and didn't want to lose the account. I only did this one story, because I wasn't comfortable with the way Stan wanted writers to work with the artists, though I see now how right he was."

Leon Lazarus: 22 August 1919 - 28 November 2008.

Howard Peter Tumlinson started selling artwork to Timely in 1949 and quickly became a frequent contributor to the western titles, drawing Kid Colt's appearances in his own magazine and in the back-up stories in Wild Western. Towards the mid-1950s Tumlinson also drew quite a few horror stories for Atlas, but dropped out of comics around that time to concentrate on book illustration.

Pete Tumlison: 2 June 1920 - 5 June 2008.

Lazarus and Tumlinson worked on Kid Colt until issue 24 (Jan 1953), when long time artist Jack Keller took over for an unprecedented 109-issue run, from Kid Colt 25 (Mar 1953) to 133 (Mar 1967).

The tone and content of the Lazarus/Tumlinson stories weren't a lot different to the Ernie Hart/Russ Heath ones. The Kid continued his travels around the west, thwarting crooked sheriffs, busting up gangs of rustlers and making hero-worshipping teenagers hate him.

With Kid Colt 25 (Mar 1953), the legendary Jack Keller took over as artist, though Lazarus would continue as scripter until Kid Colt 31 (Oct 1953) so, unsurprisingly the tone of the stories didn't really change.

Three occasions in the first 24 issues of Kid Colt Outlaw where The Kid has shot a fleeing villain in the back - not really cricket, is it?

What struck me during this period was just how ruthless Kid Colt was. Even though he was battling bad guys - and he himself was really only an outlaw due to a series of misunderstandings - The Kid would routinely shoot an escaping baddy in the back. In fact, in the first 24 issues of his mag Kid Colt killed 197 opponents by gunshot. And this doesn't count the other bad guys he despatched by knife, hurling from a height or, on two memorable occasions, causing the villains to blunder into a noose intended for The Kid.

So, although I'm not fan of censorship, I can see why some authorities might have some valid objections to some of the action in some comics of the period. And bear in mind there were other companies that published much more extreme material than Atlas/Marvel. We know that Frederic Wertham was campaigning against comics as early as 1948, when Kid Colt Hero of the West 1 debuted. So rather than rein in the killings, Marvel hired a psychiatrist to endorse the comics. From Kid Colt 2 (Oct 1948) to issue 9 (May 1950), there was a sign-off from "Jean Thompson, MD, Psychiatrist" of the New York Board of Education.

For a period, all Timely/Marvel comics carried an endorsement from Dr Jean Thompson of the New York Board of Education.

From Kid Colt 32 (Dec 1953) onwards, there would be a softening of the violence. The Kid would more regularly shoot the guns out of his opponents' hands rather than drilling villains through the heart. This might well have been because by the time that issue was going to press the Kefauver Hearings on juvenile delinquency would have been in full swing, and comics publishers deemed it wise to tone down the ultra violence. At the same time, Leon Lazarus was out as scripter - which may or may not have had something to do with the inherent violence in his stories - and another Timely veteran, Joe Gill, was in. Gill's WIKIpedia entry suggests he left Marvel for Charlton in 1948, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It seems that Gill may have left comics for a period, but soon fetched up at Marvel and Charlton in 1953, starting with a story in Kid Colt 30 (Sep 1953). Gill would write strips for Marvel in all kinds of genres, but as the 1950s wore on, he contributed fewer and fewer stories to Marvel and more and more to Charlton. Nonetheless, he continued writing Kid Colt Outlaw right up to the Great Atlas Implosion of 1957, after which the scripting was taken over by Stan Lee.

Joe Gill: 13 July 1919 - 17 December 2006.

So if we look at the next 24 issues of Kid Colt Outlaw - which takes us to the beginning of the Comics Code Approved issues of the title - there's quite a drop in the body count, where The Kid only kills 157 opponents by gunshot. And by the time we get to issue 50, just five issues into the era of the Comics Code, the body count had dropped to zero.

It's hard to attribute the toning down of the violence to any one thing. Probably the Senate Hearings and the resultant introduction of the Comics Code was a big factor, but Joe Gill's scripts may also have been a bit less kill-happy by choice. And the third factor is that with the arrival of Jack Keller as artist, The Kid seems to make far more disarming shots than kill-shots.

WHO THE HECK IS JACK KELLER?

Jack R. Keller was born on 16 June 1922 in Reading, Pennsylvania. On graduating from West Reading High School Keller starting looking for work as an illustrator and in 1941 his creation The Whistler appeared in Dell's War Stories 5, published mid-1942. From there Keller landed assignments for Quality Comics on Blackhawk, and doing backgrounds on The Spirit while Will Eisner was in the army. 

"While I was still working for Quality Comics I took some work around to Fawcett and got a strip called Johnny Blair in the Air," Keller said in a 1972 interview. "It was a filler for Captain Midnight’s comic book and was an airplane strip about the Civil Air Patrol. So I did that and I also got some work from Fiction House [Wings Comics 46 (Jun 1944) to 66 (Feb 1946)]. I was very much influenced by air war which was quite a thing of the time. I illustrated Suicide Smith and Clipper Kirk. Clipper was a naval pilot and he was always on an aircraft carrier. Every time he cracked up he fell into the arms of a beautiful girl. It was always the same script every time! Suicide Smith was pretty similar only he was a marine pilot. After the war the army and navy stories disappeared and crime stories were starting to pick up. I did some work for Biro and Wood on Crime Does Not Pay. I also did some work for Hillman Publications including a strip called The Rosebud Sisters. It was about two elderly ladles, a takeoff of Arsenic and Old Lace, that got into all kinds of curious situations. So I worked on those strips and then it seemed that detective stories were fading a bit and around '48 and '49 I also did some work for a parochial school magazine called Topics. It contained comic strips that would tell the lives of priests and various types of heroes."

In 1950, Keller took a staff job in the Timely/Marvel bullpen, and began churning out horror and crime stories for Martin Goodman's very hungry comics line.

After a couple of years Keller was drawing western titles for Atlas/Marvel, at first on Wild Western, but then really found his niche as the permanent artist for Kid Colt Outlaw, where he would continue for the next 15 years, the longest run by an artist on any Marvel character.

Though never as distinctive as contemporaries John Severin or Bill Everett, Keller's work was solid, with bold figurework and deft storytelling. Looking at Keller's 1950s output now, I'm reminded at times of the Simon and Kirby work of the same period. Stan Lee must have thought so too, because not even during the early 1960s did Stan feel the need to have Jack Kirby draw a few Kid Colts to "course-correct" Keller. 

After the Atlas Implosion, Keller supplemented his income by working in the auto trade as a salesman, then began drawing for Charlton, notably on the popular racing car comics of the time, like Hotrod Racers and Teenage Hotrodders.

Though Keller was drawing a few westerns for Charlton during his stretch there, it was the race-car comics that he enjoyed drawing the most.

"I was getting very wrapped up with automobile illustration," Keller told fan John Mozzer in 1972. "The racing stories that I was producing for Charlton were progressing quite nicely. Dick Giordano, who was editor at the time, offered me a very nice package if I would go exclusively with Charlton and forsake my duties with Marvel. So, after telling Stan Lee about this he gave me a counter offer to go with Marvel exclusively. I pondered the question quite a bit because they both had been excellent people to work for. I like Stan Lee very much and I also enjoyed Dick Giordano’s company. I finally decided on going with Charlton for the simple reason that the subject matter was more appealing to me. That was the sole reason. Actually, financially. Stan Lee’s offer was superior. so it was a matter of illustrating what I liked best and at that time it was auto racing."

By the early 1970s, Jack Keller had largely given up drawing comics and had returned to the auto retail business. He died in 2003, and was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Reifften, Pennsylvania.

Jack Keller: 16 June 1922 - 2 January 2003.

BACK TO KID COLT

One thing I particularly noticed about Jack Keller's style of storytelling was that traditionally, the first page of any story in a multi-story comic would usually depict an eye-grabbing scene from somewhere in the narrative. Pretty quickly after Keller taking charge of the illustration, the first page of the Kid Colt stories would actually have the splash page as the first scene in the story. I had always thought that this had been a Jack Kirby innovation that he'd introduced with the 1960s Fantastic Four comics ... but no.

Successive splash pages from Kid Colt 24, 25 and 26: All this time I'd thought it was Jack Kirby who invented the idea of making the first splash page of a story the opening scene rather than a "mini-cover" highlighting the most interesting scene in the strip ... but turns out it was Jack Keller.

Something else I noticed about Joe Gill's Kid Colt scripts was that there were fewer instances of recycling the same old story tropes. The only two that Gill returned to a few times were the tried and trusted "Youngster wants to be outlaw and the Kid dissuades him" (six times!) and the less trusty "Kid Colt convinces the lawman chasing him that he's decent type after all" (just three instances). Larry Lazarus also used these cliches, but also enjoyed "The Kid breaks out of jail to catch the real villains" and "Kid Colt is tortured by indians".

After the departure of Joe Gill in late 1957, Stan Lee became the regular scripter on Kid Colt Outlaw, with issue 77. Though not the most reliable indicator of actual sales, the Publisher's Statement of Ownership information for 1960 has Kid Colt as the third best-selling Marvel Comic after Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense at an average 144,746 copies a month. Which is why Stan may have been reluctant to quit scripting the western and teen titles even as the super-hero books were burgeoning, preferring instead to hand over writing chores on Astonish, Suspense, Journey into Mystery and Strange Tales to Ernie Hart, Robert Bernstein and Jerry Siegel.

Under Stan's scripting, it was pretty much business as usual, but with just a little touch of humour. Stan would continue using the same tropes that had made the Marvel cowboys among the best-selling titles of the period, warning the occasional wayward youngster away from the outlaw life and changing lawmen's opinion of him - most of the time.

Stan Lee's first dozen or so Kid Colts pretty much followed the style of Joe Gill's stories, with a dash more pep and humour. Stan also made sure he had Jack Kirby on cover art, to ensure the continued high sales of the title.

Stan also got Keller an inker ... quite why he did that I'm not sure. Maybe it was to free Keller up to take on more Charlton work, but artwork does take a noticeable upturn at this point due to the polished enhancements veteran Christopher Rule brought to the artwork.

In a first for Kid Colt, Stan Lee introduced an ongoing nemesis for The Kid, Marshal Sam Hawk, the most ruthless and dedicated lawman in the west. The character would appear in at least three more Kid Colt stories.

Another innovation Stan made was to introduce an ongoing antagonist for Kid Colt. Marshal Sam Hawk was a no-nonsense lawman, who would uphold the law rather than justice. A bit like an early version of Judge Dredd. Sam Hawk would go on to appear in Kid Colt 80, 84 and Gunsmoke Western 60 (Sep 1960), then Kid Colt 98 (May 1961) and 101 (Nov 1961), then again in Kid Colt 121 (Mar 1965). I don't think The Kid ever did change Hawk's mind about him.

Stan must've figured it was time to remind readers how a good young cowboy like Kid Colt came to be an outlaw ... though this time the villain was a local gang leader (still named "Lash Laribee", though) instead of a corrupt sheriff who wanted the Colt ranch.

In Kid Colt 79 (Jul 1958), Stan and Jack Keller did a retelling of the origin, but this time changing the villain from a corrupt lawman to a local thug. The first origin story was set in the town of Purgatory, whereas Stan's retelling is set in Abilene. This was an old choice because on several occasions during the series, by-standers have remarked that they recognise The Kid because they saw him in a shootout in Abilene, so by re-tooling Purgatory as Abilene, Stan has retroactively had Kid Colt repeatedly returning to the scene of his father's murder for further gun-duels. It also suggests that Stan didn't bother reading over the file copies of Kid Colt before he took over the scripting. Perhaps he figured no one would care.

For a man on the run from the law, that Kid Colt sure spends a lot of time in Abilene ... (click image to enlarge).

Then with issue 89 it's as though Stan figured that as the fantasy titles were doing so well, he'd introduce some fantasy elements into the western titles. Kid Colt 89 (Mar 1960) cover-featured a ghost and, although it turns out to be a gang of bandits impersonating a ghost, just as The Kid is at their mercy, an unseen something scares the wits out of them. The monster Warroo, in Kid Colt 100 (Sep 1961), is just gunfighter Rack Morgan posing as a travelling magician and further moonlighting as a creature of native American legend. By contrast, the alien in Kid Colt 107 (Nov 1962) is a genuine alien, stranded on Earth when his ship is damaged by a passing comet. The friendly creature is defended from some terrified townsfolk by The Kid, and is rescued by his fellow aliens at the end of the tale. I'm pretty sure this was Kid Colt's only brush with extraterrestrials.

Ghosts and monsters and aliens ... just some of the fantasy story elements that would haunt Kid Colt during the first year or two of the 1960s.

The other innovation Stan brought to the title was the concept of larger-than-life villains. Sometimes foreshadowing later villains of Marvel's various superheroes series, Kid Colt would face off against such colourful protagonists as Iron Mask (twice, in Kid Colt 110 and 114, May 1964 and Jan 1964), The Scorpion (115, Mar 1964), The Invisible Gunman (116, May 1964) and The Fat Man and his boomerang (117, Jul 1964) - all of these would be recycled as Marvel villains just a year or too later. And although I tend to be sceptical about most Marvel prototypes, the Fat Man character was very much a forerunner of The Kingpin, who would debut three years later in Amazing Spider-Man 50 (Jul 1967). As one bystander in the Kid Colt story remarked  ... "That ain't fat, that's solid muscle".

Story elements from the Marvel superhero titles began to crop up in the Kid Colt stories. Issue 109 (Mar 1963) also featured a pirate called the Barracuda, an idea that would later turn up in Strange Tales 120 (May 1964).

Kid Colt Outlaw 123 (Jul 1965) was the last issue to feature Stan Lee scripts and Jack Kirby covers ... and for me, this is where my interest in the title ended. Jack Keller would continue to pencil the interiors until Kid Colt 130 (Sep 1966), when the format changed to 72-page giants for three issues, but when the title returned to 12 cents and 36 pages, the scripting was by Gary Friedrich or Denny O'Neill, and Herb Trimpe, Dick Ayers and Werner Roth variously provided the pencilling.

Even though overtaken in sales by Rawhide Kid in 1963, Kid Colt Outlaw's run remains impressive. From 1948 to 1968 the title was one of Marvel's best-sellers. And even when the new material was replaced by reprint, the title continued for another 11 years, finally being cancelled with issue 229 (Apr 1979), an incredible 30 year run.

Though stories did get a bit samey - a familiar half dozen plots were dragged out and re-tooled on a too-regular basis - I still have real soft-spot for the Marvel westerns, particularly those scripted by Stan.

Next time, I'll take a look at my very favourite Marvel western character, which was essentially a revamp of a 1950s cowboy superhero.

Next: The Ghost Rider (no, the other one!)