Kid Colt is the name of two fictional characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first is a cowboy whose adventures have taken place in numerous western themed comic book series published by Marvel. The second is a cowboy-themed horse-like superhero.
Fictional character biography
Kid Colt (Western hero)
Kid Colt (real name: Blaine Colt, but see below) is an American Old West cowboy character who starred in the comic book series Kid Colt Outlaw, as well as in several other titles. He is the longest-running cowboy star in American comic-book publishing, featured in stories for a 31-year stretch from 1948â€"1979, though from 1966 most of the published stories were reprints. A brief publishing hiatus occurred between issues #139 (April 1968) and #140 (Oct. 1969).
Some of Kid Colt's earliest adventures, beginning with Kid Colt Outlaw #14 (May 1951) were written and drawn by Pete Tumlinson. Artist Jack Keller began his long association with the character starting with Kid Colt, Outlaw #25 (March 1953). Marvel editor Stan Lee would later take over writing chores on the title. Cover artists included such notables as Joe Maneely, John Severin, and Russ Heath, until the frequent Marvel cover team of penciller Jack Kirby and inker Dick Ayers took over for the bulk of them from 1959-1965.
Kid Colt and his horse Steel first appeared in Kid Colt #1 (August 1948), from Marvel predecessor Timely Comics. Originally his cover logo was subtitled "Hero of the West" but by issue three this was changed to "Outlaw". His origin, as told in Kid Colt #11 (Sept. 1950), involved Colt being wrongly accused of murder (he killed his father's murderer in a fair gun battle) and becoming a fugitive from the law, along the way engaging in heroic good acts in an effort to restore his reputation. This origin is similar to that of the Rawhide Kid, another Western character from Marvel's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics.
Kid Colt appeared in numerous series through that decade, including All Western Winners, Wild Western, Two-Gun Western, and Gunsmoke Western. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he appeared in the reprint title The Mighty Marvel Western along with the Two-Gun Kid and the Rawhide Kid; he additionally headlined the three-issue Giant-Size Kid Colt reprint series. His signature series ended with #229 (April 1979), making it the longest-running Western comic book.
The character has appeared sporadically in Marvel universe superhero titles, usually in stories involving time travel between the current era and Western times. These have included The Avengers #141-43 (1975), The Fantastic Four vol. 3, #33-34 (2000) and The Black Panther vol. 3, #46-47 (2002).
It was not until 2000, with the miniseries Blaze of Glory, by writer John Ostrander and artist Leonardo Manco, that a Western series again featured Kid Colt. The gritty miniseries â€" which featured different-looking versions of Marvel Western characters and retconned that the naively clean-cut Marvel Western stories of years past were merely dime novel fictions of their actual lives â€" killed off Kid Colt in the series' conclusion (#4, March 2000). He reappears in the present day as an old man in Skaar, King of the Savage Land where it is revealed his death was a hoax.
Marvel reintroduced Kid Colt as teenager in a 2009 "One-Shot" comic ("Kill the Kid") written by Tom Defalco and illustrated by Rick Burchett (originally published in digital format). The book, narrated by a self-proclaimed drifter named Everett Hawkmore who partners with the Kid, retells a somewhat modified origin story and changes the title character's real name to Blaine Cole. Potential plot threads unrealized in the story include a brother of Cole missing after the raid that killed his parents and a search for a witness to the gunfight that had erroneously branded him an outlaw.
The character also appears in 2010's Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven.
Kid Colt (superhero)
Kid Colt (real name: Elric Freedom Whitemane) is a contemporary superhero character in the Marvel Comics universe who has appeared as a member of the modern-day Young Allies. Created by Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley, he debuted in Heroes Reborn: Young Allies #1 (Jan. 2000).
Born to hippies, Elric was a normal child, until government agents paid his parents to let them give him special "tests" (which were attempts to fuse his DNA with the DNA of the equine aliens known as the Kymellians). The tests were successful, and young Elric changed into a strange, bipedal horse-like creature. Hearing stories of the wild west, Elric assumed the identity of Kid Colt, and began to use his newfound powers to help those in need. He was eventually recruited by the Young Allies to help them free two alien beings. Elric decided to remain with the team.
Elric is a hybrid of human and Kymellian. Due to his alien DNA, he can shapeshift into a humanoid horse, and teleport short distances. He can store items in sub-space "closets", pockets of extra-dimensional space which can hold items as large as a human being until Elric needs them. By creating multiple pockets which are linked together, Elric can run through them, and seem to rapidly blink in-and-out of existence. When he is not in his horse form, Elric wears a cowboy-themed costume in homage to the original Kid Colt. Due to his horse-like digestive system, Elric is a vegetarian (but still loves a good bowl of ice cream).
