Outlaw Kid

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The Outlaw Kid

A Doug Wildey panel from The Outlaw Kid #11 (May 1956)
Publication information
Publisher Atlas Comics / Marvel Comics
First appearance The Outlaw Kid #1 (September 1954)
Created by Doug Wildey (art)
In story information
Alter ego Lance Temple

The Outlaw Kid is a fictional Western hero in Marvel Comics' shared universe, the Marvel Universe, whose comic book series was originally released by the company's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics. A lesser-known character than the company's Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid or Two-Gun Kid, he also starred in a reprint series in the 1970s and a short-lived revival.

The Outlaw Kid was Lance Temple, an Old West lawyer and Civil War veteran living with his blinded father on a ranch. Though promising his father he would never take up a gun, he'd nonetheless felt the need to right wrongs expediently on the near-lawless frontier, and created a masked identity in order to keep his gunslinging secret.

Contents

[edit] Publication history

Drawn by comic-book artist and famed animation designer Doug Wildey, The Outlaw Kid ran 19 issues (Sept. 1954-Sept. 1957). Joe Maneely provided most of the covers. Backup features were usually "The Black Rider," drawn by Syd Shores, or an anthological Western tale. An additional Outlaw Kid story appeared in Wild Western #43 (May 1955). Well over a year after the original series ended, two other Outlaw Kid stories by Wildey, presumably from inventory, saw print, in Kid Colt, Outlaw #82 (Jan. 1959) and Wyatt Earp #24 (Aug. 1959).

When Marvel began reprinting the series in The Outlaw Kid Vol. 2, #1-30 (Aug. 1970-Oct. 1975), it became the best-selling among the company's Western reprints. Gil Kane, John Severin and Herb Trimpe, among others, provided new cover art. When the 1950s Wildey material ran out, Marvel commissioned new stories, by writer Mike Friedrich, followed by the unrelated Gary Friedrich, with art by Marvel Western veteran Dick Ayers. Yet with these new stories, in issues #10-16 (Oct. 1972 - June 1973), sales dropped, after which the title began re-reprinting Wildey's work. Wildey reprints also appeared in the 1970s Marvel series Western Gunfighters.

The Outlaw Kid reappeared in the four-issue limited series Blaze of Glory: The Last Ride of the Western Heroes (2000), by writer John Ostrander and artist Leonardo Manco, which specifically retconned that the naively clean-cut Marvel Western stories of years past were merely dime novel fictions of the characters' actual lives. It was revealed here that Temple's father had died from the shock of learning of his son's alter ego, and that a guilt-wracked Temple, blaming himself for his father's death, developed a split personality and was unaware he was the Outlaw Kid. Indeed, he was actually searching for the Outlaw Kid when the Rawhide Kid, in the miniseries, recruited him to help Reno Jones.

[edit] Legacy

The mutant Outlaw of Agency X has pictures of the Outlaw Kid in her apartment, suggesting, though it is not explicitly stated, that Lance Temple may be either an ancestor or an inspiration.

[edit] Quotes

John Ostrander: "The Outlaw Kid was once described as the closest thing in the Old West to Spider-Man. He had a father who so disapproved of guns that the character created the Outlaw Kid, and would only use guns when he was The Outlaw Kid. In my version of it, he's gone a little bit over the edge, in that his father eventually found out, and the heart attack killed him, and he's devised the Outlaw Kid into a whole different personality. And in his regular personality, he thinks the Outlaw Kid is the killer, so he's hunting himself through the miniseries".[1]

[edit] List of Doug Wildey's Outlaw Kid stories

This list is incomplete.

  • The Outlaw Kid #1 (Sept. 1954)
"The Beginning!"
"Jaws of Death!"
"A Killer's Trap!"
  • The Outlaw Kid #2 (Nov. 1954)
"The Fast Gun!" a.k.a. "The Fast Draw" (rep. Vol. 2, #3)
"Redman's Revenge!"
"Fury at Echo Pass!"
  • The Outlaw Kid #3 (Jan. 1955)(rep. Vol. 2, #1)
"Hostage"
"Breakthrough"
"Showdown"
  • The Outlaw Kid #5 (May 1955)(rep. Vol. 2, #2)
"Two of a Kind"
"The Newcomers"
"Flames of Violence"
  • The Outlaw Kid #5 (March 1956)(rep. Vol. 2, #3)
"Stand Up and Fight"
"Renegade Rout"
"The Protector"
"The Man Behind the Guns"
  • The Outlaw Kid #11 (May 1956) (rep. Vol. 2, #4)
"Losers Take Nothing"
"Six-gun Gamble"
"Fang and Claw"
"The Riddle of Scorpion Creek"
  • The Outlaw Kid #13 (Sept. 1956)
"Flames Along the Border"
"Bully's Bluff" (rep. Vol. 2, #7, Aug. 1971)
"Scourge of the Plains"
"Appointment With Danger"
  • The Outlaw Kid #14 (Nov. 1956)
"Whistling Lead"
"Gunning for Trouble"
"Gun Duel"
"The Land Grabbers"
  • The Outlaw Kid #15 (Jan. 1957)
"Duel in the Desert"
"Guns For Hire"
"Six-Gun Challenge"
"Along The Outlaw Trail"
  • Wyatt Earp #24 (Aug. 1959)
"The Man Behind the Guns"

REPRINTS

Information will go above when sourced.

  • The Outlaw Kid Vol. 2, #5 (April 1971)
"Empty holsters!"
"Fists of steel!"
"Showdown at Sunup!"
"Gunning for Trouble!"
  • The Outlaw Kid Vol. 2, #6 (June 1971; re-reprinted #22, June 1974)
"Redmen on the Rampage!"
"Six-Gun Meeting!"
"Law and Order!"
  • The Outlaw Kid Vol. 2, #9 (Dec. 1971; re-reprinted #25, Dec. 1974)
"Gun Law"
"The Outsider"
  • The Outlaw Kid Vol. 2, #10 (June 1972)
"The Origin of the Outlaw Kid"

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Disinformation Ministry 2000: John Ostrander interview (no date)

[edit] References