Nice book, I would have bought it too!
Not only is this book the forgotten key, but with no posts since 2013 it is also the forgotten thread! Nice job of resurrecting it.
Thanks! I've avoided the Marvel westerns until now but I couldn't resist this key. Looking through the issue, it reads exactly like any origin issue of any Lee/Kirby super-hero book but in a western setting.
For you guys that collect westerns, how do Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt Outlaw compare to Two-Gun? Did Lee/Kirby also do any of those or were they mostly drawn by Ayers and company?
Kirby mostly did covers on Kid Colt; he only did 5 5-page stories in the run. Kid Colt is the weakest of the 3 titles. It was probably the most formulaic, and Jack Keller's art in the latter part of the run was pretty hum-drum. I can usually find something to like in anybody's drawing, but his stuff just leaves me cold. It's very flat and often looks rushed. The best stories in those are often the filler stories, where you might get Don Heck, Ayers or the occasional Al Williamson.
The Kirby Rawhide Kids and Two-Gun Kids are decidedly the best and most like a SA Marvel superhero book. TGK has a lot of similarities with Daredevil. The later issues drawn by Ayers don't have the same punch, but they're a step up from KCO.
Don't forget to check out the anthology title Gunsmoke Western which featured all 3 Marvel western heroes, along with other miscellaneous stories with a fair amount drawn by Kirby.