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!)

Astonish: The Fall of Giant -Man

WITH THE ARRIVAL of The Incredible Hulk as Giant-Man's Tales to Astonish co-star in issue 60 (Oct 1964), the character now faced more of a struggle to stand out. The battle issue of Astonish 59 had been great fun but had been let down by the unsuitable artwork from Dick Ayers. I had always liked Ayers inking on the classic Kirby-drawn monster tales from the earlier issues of Astonish and its stable-mates Tales of Suspense, Strange Tales and Journey into Mystery. In fact many of the classic stories from those books had been inked by Ayers, like Fin Fang Foom (Strange Tales 89, Oct 1961), Spragg (Journey into Mystery 68, May 1961) and of course Groot (Tales to Astonish 13, Nov 1960).

Dick Ayers was the inker of choice for all those near-legendary Jack Kirby monster tales in the old pre-hero Marvel comics, but the Kirby magic failed to rub off on Ayers when he pencilled superhero series like Giant-Man.

WHO THE HECK IS DICK AYERS?

Richard Bache Ayers was born in Ossining, New York on 28 April 1924, and could trace his lineage back 13 generations to the original Massachusetts settlers of the early 17th Century. After selling some art to Dell Publishing that was never printed, Ayers began to study under Tarzan artist Burne Hogarth in 1947 at the Cartoonists and Illustrators' School in New York. Superman's Joe Schuster was one of the visiting teachers and eventually Ayers plucked up courage to visit the great man at his nearby studio. "He recommended me to Vince Sullivan, the publisher at ME, who let me try the Jimmy Durante strip," explained Ayers in a 1997 interview. "I submitted my work and got the job."

Dick Ayers first regular work was for ME in Jimmy Durante 1 (Oct 1948). He was then given The Callico Kid strip in Tim Holt, which later transformed into The Ghost Rider in the summer of 1950.

But the humour comics weren't selling so well, and the comic only lasted two issues. What was on the rise was the western genre. "From there I did The Calico Kid, who of course became The Ghost Rider." Ayers would pencil and ink Ghost Rider for the next eight years, but not exclusively. "By 1951 I had started doing horror stories for Stan Lee, about one a week," recalled Ayers. "The next year I started doing The Human Torch for the Young Men title." Ayers is misremembering here. According to the Grand Comicbook Database, Torch creator Carl Burgos pencilled and inked the Human Torch stories in Young Men. Ayers is credited with drawing the stories in Human Torch 36-38 (Apr 1954 - Aug 1954), though the GCD researchers note that Burgos re-drew the Torch figures throughout the stories. Ayers also drew the two Torch stories in Captain America 77 & 78 (Jul & Sep 1954).

Ayers first pencilled Human Torch story had all the Torch figures redrawn by creator Carl Burgos, but after that Ayers was off and running and also drew the Torch stories in Captain America ... Commie Smasher. Once the mini-superhero revival ended, Ayers moved back into western comics like Wyatt Earp.

Ayers' next regular pencilling job was on the Atlas title Wyatt Earp, beginning with issue 8 (Jan 1957). These early pencilling jobs were often inked by longtime Ayers associate Ernie Bache. The two had met at the Cartoonists and Illustrators' School and had been amused that they shared a name, though they weren't related.

Dick Ayers didn't really become known as an inker until he started working over Jack Kirby's pencils for Marvel at the very beginning of the 1960s. "The first work I did with Jack was inking the cover of Wyatt Earp. This was in October of 1959. Stan Lee liked it and sent me another job, 'The Martian Who Stole My Body', for Journey into Mystery 57 (Mar 1960)."

Dick Ayers' first inking job was over Kirby's pencils for the cover of Wyatt Earp 27 (Feb 1960). The following month Ayers inked a Kirby story in Journey into Mystery 57. Immediately after that Ayers was inking both cover and interior story over Kirby pencils in Tales of Suspense 8 (Mar 1960).

Around this time, Kirby's preferred inker Christopher Rule left comics. I haven't been able to find out why, just that his last recorded inking jobs were around the end of 1959. So it does look as though Stan deliberately switched Ayers over to inking as a replacement for Rule. Certainly within a month, Ayers was inking many of Kirby's stories and covers for the Marvel Monster books.

"Stan told me he was not hiring me to trace," recalled Ayers. "I was told to add, embellish. I did do one story just as it was in front of me, a Rawhide Kid. He said, 'I didn't ask for a damn love story. This is a Western!' He gave me a long lecture. He told me if there were only two figures in a panel, to add a background."

Dick Ayers became one of the mainstay inkers on Marvel's western titles, which were as successful as the superhero titles during the early 1960s.

Through the later half of 1960, Ayers was inking both monster stories and westerns, mostly over Kirby's pencils but also on Jack Keller's pencil work as well. "The one thing Jack (Kirby) couldn't draw was a six-gun. He couldn't draw a Colt .45; they were miserable. The handles were always wrong, and I'd have to redraw them. Sometimes I wouldn't erase the pencilled one and, in the printed comic, you'd see two, his and mine. Jack was a city boy, whereas I grew up in the country." 

After Marvel's first but unsuccessful superhero, Doctor Droom in Amazing Adventures, failed to catch on, Dick Ayers took over inking Fantastic Four with issue 6.

When Lee and Kirby tried their first recurring super-character Doctor Droom, in Amazing Adventures, Ayers was picked to ink the covers and the interior stories. Though Droom wasn't a big success, Lee and Kirby were on surer footing with the Fantastic Four title. And after a revolving door of inkers on the first five issues, Ayers became the regular embellisher with issue 6 (Sep 1962) and worked on the title right through to Fantastic Four 20 (Nov 1963).

Dick Ayers inked Jack Kirby's pencils for both cover and interior of the landmark war comic Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos 1 (May 1963), then took over pencilling with issue 8. Ayers pencils were massively enhanced when veteran John Severin took over inking with issue 44.

But where Ayers would really come to shine was when he began pencilling Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos with issue 8 (Jul 1964). He'd inked the first three issues, including covers, over Kirby pencils but was then been displaced by George Roussos (who'd used the pen-name George Bell). Roussos continued as inker for the next few stories, then there began a catalogue of inkers until issue 25 when John Tartaglione became more or less the regular inker. The series really became memorable when John Severin began inking Ayers' pencils, beginning with Sgt Fury 44 (Jul 1967) and running all the way through to issue 81 (Nov 1970).

Dick Ayers, 28 Apr 1924 - 4 May 2014.

Ayers would also go on to revive his 1950s western character Ghost Rider for Marvel in the late 1960s, and provide pencils for pretty much the whole run of the Sgt Fury spinoff character, Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders (Jan 1968 - Mar 1970). But as the 1970s drew to a close, there seemed to be less and less work at Marvel for the veteran artist, and by the 1980s, he had been more or less retired from Marvel.

For almost thirty years, Dick Ayers had been a mainstay at Marvel Comics, mostly due to the influence of Stan Lee. When things were looking tough for Marvel in the late 1950s, after Martin Goodman's less-than-genius decision to shut down his own distribution company, Atlas, work had been hard to find. "It was a real low-point," recalled Ayers. "Stan said, 'This is it, we'd better just abandon ship.' I went home and got a job at the Post Office, this was in late 1958. I called Stan back and told him I'd done as he said, found another job. He told me to wait, he'd find me more work. And he did: even during the toughest times Stan always found something for me. I did the job, mailed it off. He sent me back a little note, which I've kept. It said, 'Dick, I love ya!' He really liked my work."

MORE TALES TO ASTONISH

But after nine issues of Giant-Man art in Tales to Astonish, it must have been plain even to Stan that Dick Ayers wasn't ideally suited to superhero work and issue 60 (Oct 1964) would be Ayers' last work on the strip.

The Giant-Man story in Tales to Astonish 60 opens with Hank Pym recounting the events that led to the death of his first wife Maria in Hungary years earlier. He goes on to battle gorillas in Soviet-branded romper suits.

Nevertheless, Ayers never turned in a less-than-serviceable job and his art on "The Beasts of Berlin" was no exception. The plot has Hank Pym learn that old friend Lee Kearns, who was Giant-Man's FBI contact back in Astonish 44, is being held behind the Berlin Wall, accused of spying. As Ant-Man, Hank enters East Berlin and frees his friend, foiling a communist plot to create an army of intelligent gorillas along the way. There's also a bit where Hank tells Jan what happened to his late wife Maria, making The Wasp think that Giant-Man isn't interested in her romantically. At 14 pages, Giant-Man is still very much the lead feature in Astonish. The Hulk section takes up only 10 pages, despite being drawn by Marvel star artist Steve Ditko.

Dependable Steve Ditko proved much better at drawing superheroics and was able to pitch in a very fast fill-in art job on Giant-Man when two other artists - Joe Orlando and Dick Rockwell - dropped out of contention.

The following issue, Tales to Astonish 61 (Nov 1964), saw Ditko step up to pencil the Giant-Man tale as well as the Hulk story. On the opening page of "Now Walks the Android", Stan explains that the new artist scheduled to take over Giant-Man from Dick Ayers was unable to, so Steve Ditko stepped in to "quickly pencil Stan's script while George Bell inked it seconds before deadline." What Stan doesn't tell you is that the story had actually been started by Joe Orlando, who had quit when Stan had asked him to make some changes Orlando didn't agree with. Stan then had lined up Dick Rockwell - nephew of famed American illustrator Norman Rockwell - to take on the regular pencils on Giant-Man and even went so far as to introduce the new artist on the letters pages that hyped the issue.

Dick Rockwell had been around comics all through the 1950s, working primarily for Lev Gleason on a range of his titles. Rockwell also freelanced for Charlton and Atlas, but in the mid-1950s was hired by Milton Caniff to pencil and ink secondary characters and backgrounds on the hugely successful Steve Canyon newspaper strip, as gig which lasted 35 years. in the late 1980s, Rockwell returned to comics, turning in a few freelance art jobs for DC Comics.

Rockwell had been an assistant to Milton Caniff on the hugely successful newspaper strip Steve Canyon, and had worked for Stan during the 1950s on several Atlas titles, so wouldn't have been unfamiliar with comic strips and deadlines. But for reasons that aren't clear, Rockwell backed out of the assignment at the last moment, and Stan had to turn to Marvel mainstay Steve Ditko. Even so, it's spectacularly honest of Stan to admit in print that it was a rush job born out of a production crisis, something that I venture no DC Comics editor would ever do. For a rush job, the result is pretty good. Ditko handles superhero action better than Ayers, so it was always going to be an improvement for me.

Stan's script brings back Egghead, not an especially effective villain, but Ditko's android is pretty creepy. Given the way the interior art for this issue was produced, and that Marvel covers were usually drawn after the interior art, it's interesting that Jack Kirby's cover art doesn't depict the face of the Android - probably because he didn't know what it looked like when he pencilled the cover art - he very likely had to draw it before Ditko turned in his eleventh hour art job.

As you might expect, Carl Burgos' art on the Giant-Man strip is a bit better suited to superhero action than that of Dick Ayers ... after all, he helped create the super-hero genre thirty years earlier when he drew The Human Torch for the first issue of Marvel Comics (Oct 1939).

Tales to Astonish 62 (Dec 1964) was one of those Marvel titles to get caught up in the great Thorpe and Porter distribution snafu of 1964. As with the previous issue, The Hulk seemed to take top billing on the cover, though his story was still at 10 pages, while the Giant-Man tale ran to 12. The new penciller on Giant-Man was Carl Burgos, a Golden Age veteran and the creator of the original Human Torch.

Stan's plot has small-time crook Second-Story Sammy accidentally discovering, then assuming, Giant-Man's secret identity and powers by simply putting on his costume. It's a little confusing because as I've already noted, Hank Pym hasn't really gone out of his way to keep either his or Janet van Dyne's activities as superheroes on the QT. Anyhow, it doesn't take The Wasp long to catch up with the bogus Giant-Man and even less time for her to realise this guy's a phoney. Hank sends one of his winged ants after the impostor. With Sammy captured and Hank's costume back with its rightful owner, it only remains for Hank to give the crook some "memory loss serum" he happened to have lying around and everything is back to normal.

Carl Burgos' pencils are a marginal improvement on Ayers' work, though the art does look a little old-fashioned. Here and there the layout is a bit unclear and Stan has to resort to explaining in captions what the readers should have been able to see for themselves in the artwork. And though Dick Ayers is credited as the inker on the splash page, Marvel expert Nick Caputo disputes that and identifies the inking as George Roussos' work.

Though the plot was recycled from an older Ant-Man story, Stan and Carl manage to include some new wrinkles. But it's still not in the same class as Marvel's A productions of the era.

The Giant-Man story in Tales to Astonish 63 (Jan 1965) was essentially a re-tread of the Ant-Man tale from Astonish 37. A masked crook is extorting money from local businesses and Hank Pym poses as a store owner himself to lure the baddie into a trap. Stan must have realised that Marvel readers have long memories, as he actually apologises on the letters page, saying, "We feel 'The Wrecker' was kind of a weak Giant-Man tale. We had originally scheduled another villain - a much more colourful one - but at the last minute, we learned that a competitor had used a similar one, and so we decided to change everything."

The artwork of Carl Burgos does look better this issue, aided no doubt by the always excellent inking of Chic Stone. Burgos manages to include some of those size comparisons that Stan has spoken of in interviews, where Ant-Man is placed next to huge everyday objects and Giant-Man is shown from low angles to emphasise his height. There's also a development at the end of the story, where Giant-Man kisses The Wasp, then, flustered, tries to claim he was only administering  mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But we readers knew what was going on ...

At the time he scripted this Giant-Man story for Tales to Astonish 64, Leon Lazarus hadn't written comics for almost ten years ... which might account for why the captions and balloons are so text heavy.

Just a couple of months earlier, undersea blue meanie Attuma had battled The Fantastic Four and Namor to a standstill. But he returns in Tales to Astonish 64 (Feb 1965) with a new plan to conquer the surface world. Using a weird bubbling weapon, he captures a plane carrying Janet van Dyne. When alerted to Jan's plight, Giant-Man comes looking for the underwater menace and gives a pretty good account of himself. The story ends with Attuma defeated and promising not bother the surface people again, a promise not kept as he was back a few months later to menace Iron Man in Tales of Suspense 66 (Jun 1965).

Leon Lazarus, pictured the year he began at Timely Comics, in 1947. He was 27 years old.

Though plotted by Stan Lee, the scripting was credited to the previously unknown, and slightly phoney-sounding, Leon Lazarus. In fact, Lazarus started at Timely Comics in 1947 as a staff letterer, but within weeks began selling scripts to editor Dave Berg. He then joined the staff as an assistant to Don Rico, overseeing the letterers, including Artie Simek, and the proofreaders. By 1949, he was working for Al Jaffee on the humour titles, but in 1950 was let go by publisher Martin Goodman, in the first big implosion of the Timely comics line. However, Lazarus continued to freelance for the Atlas imprint, writing westerns for Stan Lee. When his scripting work dried up after the Atlas implosion of 1957, Lazarus turned his efforts to Goodman's magazine line, where he contributed fiction material to titles like Stag and Male. Lazarus came to write the Giant-Man script because Goodman, "... 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," Lazarus told Alter Ego magazine in a 2009 interview.

"Goodman told Stan to, 'Have Leon write stories'," Lazarus continued. "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."

The pencils of Marvel newcomer Bob Powell brought a much-needed dynamism to the Giant-Man story in Tales to Astonish 65. By this point Powell had 25 years experience as a penciller, and it showed.

Tales to Astonish 65 (Mar 1965) introduced a new costume for Giant-Man ... or rather, an enhanced costume. By building additional cybernetic equipment into a new headpiece, Hank Pym gains the ability to grow and shrink things other than himself. The entire adventure happens in Hank's lab - there no super-villain threat here - but Stan's script, the art of incoming penciller Bob Powell and the finely-rendered inking of Don Heck more than makes up for it. It seems likely that with a strong creative team in place, Stan felt he could breath new life into one of his favourite characters. On the letters page, Stan notes, "We hope you'll send us your opinions of our new Giant-Man costume and artwork as soon as possible! Personally, we think it's a great improvement - but, as you're always telling us, who are we to have an opinion?"

Bob Powell was a tremendously experienced comic artist, beginning his career in the late 1930s on Fiction House's Jumbo Comics. He worked for Will Eisner during the 1940s and ME in the 1950s.

Bob Powell was an unfamiliar name to Marvel readers, but he was a veteran, having toiled for a variety of publishers during the Golden Age of comics, including Fiction House, Timely, Quality and Magazine Enterprises (ME). His earliest known work was in Jumbo Comics 2 (Oct 1938), where he drew the Charlie McCarthy humour strip. Powell then freelanced for Timely Comics and settled at Quality, where he contributed to Smash Comics and Feature Comics. When Will Eisner broke away from Quality to form his own shop, he took Bob Powell, Chuck Cuidera and Lou Fine with him. Powell drew Mr Mystic for Eisner's Spirit section newspaper giveaway.

Bob Powell, pictured during the 1960s.

After being discharged from the US Air Force after WWII, Powell began working for ME, where he pencilled Strong Man and Cave Girl, and for Harvey, for whom he drew many war, romance and horror tales, including Man in Black. Powell also worked on the art for the notorious gum card series Mars Attacks and Civil War News during the early 1960s. He would continue as Giant-Man's regular penciller, as well as the Torch and Thing stories in Strange Tales 130 - 135 and layouts for Daredevil 9 - 11, when Wally Wood refused to do the plotting part of the "Marvel Method".

Tales to Astonish 66 (Apr 1965) I covered in an earlier post, so I won't repeat myself here.

In this story, Powell does a good job of conveying Giant-Man's size compared to the world around him. I really liked the four-panel section where Giant-Man is straining to shrink after Supremor has stolen his power.

Tales to Astonish 67 (May 1965) pits Giant-Man against "The Hidden Man and his Rays of Doom". In this story, Giant-Man comes under attack from an alien, Supremor, who has the power to steal the knowledge and abilities using a weird green ray. He absorbs Hank Pym's shrinking power and comes very close to defeating Giant-Man, but for the intervention of Supremor's own kind, who have rules about conquering primitive planets. Bob Powell's pencils look especially good when inked by Chic Stone.

Though I've never really been a fan of Vince Colletta's inking, he does a pretty good job here over Bob Powell's strong pencils. The Human Top's new costume isn't any kind of improvement over his old "Human Turnip" uniform.

The Giant-Man story in Tales to Astonish 68 (Jun 1965) sees the return of an old enemy and Vince Colletta inking Powell's pencils. After his encounter with Supremor in the previous issue, Hank Pym is unable to shrink to Ant-size. And even his growing powers seem to be exacting a mighty toll on his body. So when Hank is attacked by The Human Top in a new costume and Jan is taken, Hank struggles to battle him at his larger size.

In "Oh Wasp, Where is Thy Sting" (runner-up for the corniest story title ever conceived by Stan), Giant-Man has problems with his shrinking powers at the beginning of the episode, but has miraculously solved the problem by the end.

Tales to Astonish 69 (Jul 1965) picks up where the previous issue left off, with The Wasp in the hands of the Human Top and Hank unable to shrink to ant-size. Unable to use a flying ant to track down his partner, Hank causes Jan's pet wasp to grow, and use the insect's mental connection with The Wasp to lead him to her. Unbelievably, his plan works and he walks unknowingly into The Top's carefully prepared trap. Giant-Man plunges into a concealed pit where The Top plans to freeze him solid. The Top activates the machinery and Giant-Man is encased in solid ice. But Giant-Man escapes and turns the tables on the Top, freezing him in his own trap.

When the police arrive, Giant-Man explains that he was able to survive by shrinking to ant-size. This does seem to be a mistake as it's fairly clearly stated at the beginning of the story that Hank is no longer able to shrink to ant-size. Is this an error by plotter Stan? Did scripter Al Hartley not understand the story correctly? I guess we'll never know ...

So, that was it for old High-Pockets. Stan had done the best he could, but readers just didn't seem to take to Giant-Man. The strip wasn't helped by its revolving door of artists, most of whom weren't best suited to superhero antics. And just when it looked like Stan was beginning to get the character back on track with Giant-Man's best penciller Bob Powell, he pulled the rug from under Giant-Man and canned the series.

Giant Man would appear in two further issues of The Avengers after Tales to Astonish 69, but the writing was on the wall for Hank Pym. It would be a year before Stan brought Hank and Jan back in The Avengers 28 (May 1966), and in the meantime, the front slot in Tales to Astonish was given to Prince Namor, The Sub-Mariner ... at which point I lost interest in the title.

Next: War ... what is it good for?