Friday, April 02, 2010

The Rattlesnake Always Bites Twice

Friday Comic Book Day.

Today I have two stories from Kid Colt Outlaw, one of the oldest running western series from Timely/Atlas. Every book had three Kid Colt stories and one 'filler' which was done by anyone available. The first story is by Peter Morisi, whom I mentioned earlier in connection to George Tuska. Not as impressive a job as thesf tale I showed last week, but typiclly Morisi anyway. After that a 'real' George Tuska story. This has everything I like about Tuska, especially the non standard faces of his heroes and villians. This story has the added bonus that I think it is one of a rare few stories Stan Lee wrote but didn't sign. Why do I think it is by Stan Lee? In my article in Alter Ego, I outlined a couple of identifyers of Lee's involvement, but there are few of those to be seen here. No use of the word thru instead of through, no odly large number of pages (although this is essentially a four page story that could have been done in three). The job number is adjacent to another story that Lee wrote and signed, but the next story after that and the first story before that are probably not by him, so this would have to have been a very short 'run'. But it reads like a Lee story to me. The sparse use of dialogue in the first pages, the way the punny name of the villian keeps appearing through the story and is used as a twist in the end, the twist itself... all indicate Stan Lee to me.

From Kid Colt Outlaw #16:




From Kid Colt Outlaw #24:





And as long as we are doing western stories, here's another early story written by Lee. Again with a criminal who's name comes from the snake family. This time, it's the artist(s) who didn't sign. My guess is, it's one of those Godfarb/Bear jobbies...

From Kid Colt Outlaw #27:



No comments: