SUNDANCE KID "Death Rides the Thunder Wagon"

After seeing the 1969 Robert Redford/Paul Newman movie...

...kids picking up Skywald's Blazing Six Guns #1 in 1971 were probably quite confused, because this Sundance Kid was nothing like the movie version (or like the Real-Life Westerner, for that matter)!

The box-office success of the 1969 Western movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, inspired Skywald Comics to make the duo the title protagonists of three of the five Western titles they launched in 1971.

Oddly, instead of Butch and Sundance headlining a book together, they were each given their own titles, along with new sidekicks/partners, although there was a guest appearance by the Kid in the final issue of Cassidy's book!
(Besides their self-titled books, the Kid also headed the anthology Blazing Six Guns, from the first issue of which this story by writer Len Wein and artists Dick Ayers & John Tartaglione was taken.)
It's not a bad story by any stretch, but it really feels like a reworked Kid Colt or Rawhide Kid tale with no real characterization to differentiate Sundance from almost every other cowpoke.

Visit the 

Real-Life Westerners store...
...for duds and provisions!