TIM HOLT "becomes Red-Mask!"

When Tim Holt #19 came out in 1950, the last page of the comic asked the question...

...when #20 came out two months later, the readers found out who the masked man was...

...Tim Holt, himself!

As we've shown in our John Wayne and Buster Crabbe entries, many Western movie and tv stars had self-titled comics that played on the conceit that the actors actually were Western characters!

But this was the only series that a "reel-life" Westerner assumed a masked identity he hadn't played on the silver screen...

The masked identity became so popular that almost every cover from #20 onward featured the masked hero, and the book was retitled Red Mask with #42!

Son of movie actor Jack Holt, who had done movie serials and Westerns in the silent and early talkie eras, Tim Holt appeared in John Wayne's breakout film Stagecoach, as well as numerous b-movies including a late 40s-early 50s series of Westerns where he played...Tim Holt!

There's dispute as to whether Gardner Fox or Ray Krank wrote this intro tale, but there's no doubt it's illustrated by Frank Bolle!

Trivia: Proofreading apparently wasn't a prerequisite in Golden Age books.

The writers and editors can't seem to decide if the hero is called "RedMask", "Red Mask", or "Red-Mask"!

(The story titles and the book itself were "Red Mask" or "Red-Mask", while the captions and balloons spelled it "RedMask"!)

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THE ORIGINAL GHOST RIDER "Origin"

WARNING: Stereotypes of Native Americans and Asians common to the 1950s. May be NSFW.

From Magazine Enterprises' Ghost Rider #1 (1950). 
Written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Dick Ayers.

He began life in the late 1940s as Rex Fury, aka The Calico Kid, a masked hero whose secret identity was a lawman who felt justice was constrained by legal limitations. (There were a lot of those heroes in comics and pulps of the 40s including our own DareDevil and Blue Beetle!)
But, with masked heroes in every genre doing a slow fade-out after World War II, and both the western and horror genres on the rise, the character was re-imagined in 1949 as comics' first horror / western character!
The Ghost Rider himself was not a supernatural being.
He wore a phosphorescent suit and cape, making him glow in the dark, appearing as a spectral presence to the (mostly) superstitious cowboys and Indians he faced.
Since the inside of the cape was black, he'd reverse it, and appear in the dark as just a floating head, usually scaring a confession or needed information out of owlhoots.
Despite the initial aid from deceased Western heroes (and a heroine) in this origin tale, the series' early days were populated with villains who were standard owlhoots or, like The Ghost Rider, people pretending to be supernatural beings.
That changed around 1952, when he started facing real mystic menaces including Indian spirits, vampires, and even the Frankenstein Monster (though not the one from Prize Comics.)
Unfortunately, it was about this point in time that Dr. Wertham began his crusade against comics in general and horror comics in particular...
By 1954, The Ghost Rider had lost his series. The next year he disappeared entirely.
If you're a fan of horror, masked heroes, Westerns, or all three genres, take a long, lingering look at The Ghost Rider!
You'll not see his like again, except here, at the Western Comics Adventures™ blog!

Next: Another Real-Life Westerner gets the graphic novel treatment!

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