Weird West JIMMY WAKELY "Phantom Brander"

What if the Original Ghost Rider was evil instead of good?

Art by Gil Kane

Well, he'd probably be a lot like this hombre, who appeared in the final issue of DC's Jimmy Wakely!

The "Phantom Brander" was a near-exact clone of the Original Ghost Rider...

...down to the use of phosphorescent paint and misdirection to convey a "supernatural" effect against his opponents.

Jimmy Wakely was one of numerous "singing cowboys" (like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers) popular during the 1930-1950s in b-movies and radio.

Like many other Western stars, Jimmy had a comic book featuring himself in action against various menaces, but in a clearly present-day Western setting.

This particular story, illustrated by Gil Kane and Bob Lander, was from Wakely's final issue, #18, in 1952.

Gil Kane would later do numerous covers in the 1970s featuring Marvel's version of the Old West Ghost Rider aka Night Rider aka Phantom Rider.

(Marvel kept changing the Western character's name to avoid confusion with the more-popular motorcycle-riding hero!)

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ROY ROGERS "Tornado Weather"

It's interesting that, in the three years this blog has been around...

...we've never done a post featuring one of the most popular cowboy stars of both movies and TV, Roy Rogers!

Note: may be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to 1950s pop culture.

This never-reprinted tale from Dell's Roy Rogers Comics #74 (1954) is in the same vein as other "Reel-Life Western" comics with the cowboy star playing himself doing things usually done in the movies by stuntmen!
Note: though the comic had already been doing a number of stories using the Roy Rogers TV series' format, this particular tale seems to be a standalone unlrelated to those as Roy is a deputy for a different sherriff as seen in the TV show and his TV character (also called "Roy Rogers") is a rancher!

Written by Gaylord DuBois, illustrated by John Buscema and Mario Acquaviva.

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JOHN WAYNE "Ghost Guns"

The Duke ain't afraid of nothing...

...as this story, one of the few to be published twice during the run of Toby's John Wayne Adventures, shows!

Neither the writer nor artist for the story that appeared in both #12 (1951) and #21 (1953) of John Wayne Adventures is known.
In the 40s and 50s, a number of Western movie, radio, and tv stars (not characters, stars) had comics based on them, including Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, Charles Starrett, Tim Holt, and Lash Larue. Even co-stars and sidekicks like Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes had titles!
Stars like Buster Crabbe and John Wayne also had comics which primarily ran Western tales, but also did stories based on the other genres they appeared in.
In the case of The Duke, his title also had WWII and high adventure stories.
Interestingly, all the stories featured John Wayne as John Wayne, not as a character like Rooster Cogburn or Ethan Edwards!

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TIM HOLT "Target: RedMask"

You know you've "arrived" as a hero...

...when a criminal mastermind actually sets up a training program just to teach people how to kill you!

You may note that Frank Bolle's artwork for this tale from Magazine Enterprises' Tim Holt #39 (1953) has a very "open" feel with characters constantly "breaking" the panel borders.
That's because it was created during comics' brief flirtation with 3-D in the 1950s.
The process used red and blue line-art along with red and blue glasses to create three-dimensional effects from flat artwork as shown HERE.
However, Magazine Enterprises didn't go that route!
Instead, they directed their artists to do exactly what you saw here to create a pseudo-three dimensional effect...and labeled it as "3-D in Full Color".

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BOB COLT "Flying Fists"

Many Western stars including John Wayne and Buster Crabbe had their own comics...

...so when a new Western star (and his horse, Buckskin) came along in 1950, Fawcett Comics immediately gave him his own title, complete with backstory...

Here's one of the tales from his first issue...

This never-reprinted tale from Fawcett's Bob Colt #1 (1950) was drawn by George Evans, but the writer is unknown.

Wanna know a secret?

Bob Colt didn't exist!

Well, the guy who portrayed him on the covers did exist, and if you've ever read "high adventure" paperbacks, you've seen him...

...on almost every Doc Savage book cover from1964 to 1972!

(Not to mention The Avenger, James Bond, two different incarnations of The Spider, even as puppet character Steve Zodiac from the 1960s tv series FireBall XL5...

...and, he was the second on-screen Flash Gordon [after Buster Crabbe], on a 1950s one-season TV series filmed in Europe!)

He's male model Steve Holland, who served as the visual template for Bob Colt, and posed for every cover during the book's run.

Fawcett was testing the waters with a plethora of new characters who were portrayed by actors/models on their covers including...

...Vic Torry...

and Bill Battle!

Perhaps they were hoping to sell the properties to tv production companies with the actors used on the covers as the series' stars?

None of them went beyond their comic book incarnations, but Bob Colt was the longest-lasting of the new characters, with a 10-issue run!