by Renaud Bédard
MARVEL WESTERN FILM EVENT
by Renaud Bédard



This could all be built as a single huge film event, or be developed farther into an all Marvel western film trilogy with the focus moving from one character to an other, from one film to the next; and in the end the greatest most magnificent western marvels, would all come together for one final spectacular showdown that would include the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, Two-Gun Kid, the Outlaw Kid, the western Ghost Rider, the Masked Raider, and others, in the style of Blaze Of Glory and Apache Skies. And in the movie, not everyone would necessarily be the exact same age, there could be different generations, where some could be older like the Ghost Rider, others in their prime, and possibly a very young Rawhide Kid still in his late teenage years, but with extremely fast reflexes on the trigger

- THE RAWHIDE KID -

Originally Johnny Clay, later called Johnny Bart, his parents, the Clays, were killed in a raid by Cheyenne Indians, and as an orphan his uncle the Texas Ranger Ben Bart took him in and raised him as his own son near the town of Rawhide in Texas. Then one day, Ben was shot and killed by criminals, leaving Johnny to avenge him by making them pay with their own lives. After the Rawhide Kid and his horse Apache took to drifting from place to place, with his reputation as a fast gunner always preceding him. In those days of the legendary far west, the law and the people to enforce were pretty much almost none existent in many places, while greed and dishonest men ruled, and a man without a gun to defend himself was pretty much a dead man; and with a less-than-average height still at a young age, some poor souls tended to underestimate the Rawhide Kid, but not for very long

- KID COLT -

Kid Colt, on his horse Steel, in reality was Blaine Colt, hero of the West when he was wrongly accused of murder, and chose to run rather than try to fight an overwhelming presumption of guilt. He spent the rest of his life trying to outrun his reputation, which remained despite the fact that he used his amazing skill with a six-gun only in the cause of good and justice

- TWO GUN KID -

Matt Hawk was a young lawyer from Boston, Massachusetts who settled in Tombstone, Texas after the Civil War. Soon after arriving, he was roughed up by the local Carter gang, and it was later when he saw some of that very same gang harassing an elderly man, that he drew his gun and drove them away. From then on, Hawk adopted a masked identity, calling himself the Two-Gun Kid to fight criminals. Years later, Matt's got married and had a daughter, but both mother and child died, deaths which might have been prevented with proper medicine, something that made him more cynical and fatalist over time. Later on he arranged to fake his own death and began a new life, and he resumed his legal career under a different name. Determined to remain retired from gunfighting, some of his old friends came to ask him for help to protect a town in desperate need, where he agreed to put on the mask of The Two-Gun Kid once more

- OUTLAW KID -

Lance Temple was a veteran of the civil war who returned home to live with his father, working both as a frontier lawyer, and helping on the family ranch. One day, when both men were out riding together, they were ambushed by outlaws during the fight his father was blinded when dynamite exploded. Afterwards Lance wanted to hunt down the men who had crippled his father, but he wouldn't hear of it and insisted that violence had blinded him and was only going to make things worse. The father made his son swear to never get involved in violence, which Lance reluctantly agreed to. But not keeping his promise, Lance took on the mask and name of the Outlaw Kid so that he could fight for justice without his father knowing of his broken promise. But eventually his father learned of his son's deception, and the shock of the revelation killed the old man, and led Lance to suffer a breakdown from the guilt, and he developed a split personality. As Lance Temple he hunted the Outlaw Kid for murdering his father, unaware that he was the Kid, and as the Outlaw Kid the guilt disappeared

- GHOST RIDER / NIGHT RIDER / PHANTOM RIDER -

A surprise appearance of Marvel's Western Ghost Rider Carter Slade would be like the cherry on the Sunday, aka Night Rider, aka Phantom Rider, but in reality Carter Slade, which could have gone into three stages of evolution, starting out as a school teacher from Ohio that moved west to help out the regions most in need, and not long after, becoming the masked man on a white horse, and finally, in a moment of desperation, ending up as the flaming horseman after getting fooled into signing a contract with the Devil. And between the hero all dressed in white to flaming horseman and his contract with the devil where he stopped aging, during all that time would have been quite a few years of crime fighting in the old far west for Carter Slade, before he disappeared out of devil sight, onto holly grounds

- THE MASKED RAIDER -

As the very first western character ever to be published in the early Timely Comics golden age era, in the very first issue of Marvel Comics from 1939, it is in a world of injustices and corruption that Jim Gardley became the Masked Raider, and on his horse lightning, he dedicated his life to this oath to forever fight the lawless, bring Justice to the oppressed, and help the poor; and somehow, I think it would only be fitting to also include in that film the very first Marvel western legend

- LAST DAYS OF THE RAWHIDE KID -

As part of a possible Marvel Western comic book trilogy continuing from Blaze Of Glory and Apache Skies, the new story could shift from past to present, as a young man with a familiar face would be exploring his family tree only to discover that one of his ancestor was Johnny Bart the legendary Rawhide Kid; and over the course of his research in a modern world he would also find out how his great grand father sacrificed himself and died saving the lives of many and protect something of great historical importance even today. In the end the young man and all descendants, one a very old woman, the very daughter of Johnny Bart, they would all assemble together at the last resting place of their long lost ancestor, the greatest western hero that ever lived, the Rawhide Kid. For as long as he could remember, the young man always had with him in his possession a special decorative object, and only through his research and speaking to his parents and grand Mother would he discover that the unique piece of jewellery belonged to Rawhide Kid himself, it was a good luck charm his mother gave him as a young boy just the day she died along with her husban in that Indian raid, and he gave it to his new born little girl on his very last day when he said goodbye for the last time

PS: Please release all original Marvel age stories of the Rawhide Kid in Marvel Masterworks; It might seem like a lot of issues to collect, but it should be realized that many, especially the later ones, were just reprinting earlier ones, and many Rawhide kid stories in many issues had a very low page count, down to 15 pages, with lots of reprinted backstories of other characters from other series