Two-Gun Kid

Two-Gun Kid
Two-Gun Kid (Matt Hawk / Matt Liebowicz) Art by Scott Kolins.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	(Clay Harder) Two-Gun Kid #1 (March 1948); (Matt Hawk) Two-Gun Kid #60 (Nov. 1962)
Created by	Stan Lee Jack Kirby
In-story information
Alter ego	Matthew J. Hawkins[1]
Team affiliations	Avengers Fifty State Initiative Desert Stars The Sensational Seven Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway
Notable aliases	Matt Hawk, Matthew Liebowitz
Abilities	Expert marksman trained in hand-to-hand combat

The Two-Gun Kid (Matthew J. "Matt" Hawkins) is a fictional character, a cowboy gunslinger in the Wild West of Marvel Comics' shared universe, the Marvel Universe.

Publication history

There have been two comic-book Western heroes called the Two-Gun Kid. The original Two-Gun Kid, Clay Harder, was Marvel's first continuing western character, appearing in Two-Gun Kid #1 (March 1948)^[2] and continuing off and on until 1962, with Joe Sinnott being the last artist to draw the original Kid on a regular basis.

Two-Gun Kid #60 (Nov. 1962) retconned the Clay Harder character out of existence, turning him into a dime novel character, and introduced the second Two-Gun Kid, Matt Hawk, whose true last name was much later retconned to be Liebowicz. The latter Kid is better known, thanks primarily to his connection with and later full integration into the Marvel Universe, but the earlier Kid enjoyed a prolific 14-year life span in comics.

The two Kids wore different outfits: Clay Harder had bright blond hair and wore an all-black suit with a placard shirt, a broad-brimmed black hat, and packed two long-barreled pistols with individual overlapping gun belts, while Matt Hawk wore a similar outfit only with an orange-and-black spotted vest, a slightly narrower-brimmed hat, two pistols on a single gun belt, and a black mask covering the top half of his face. At one point later in the second series, some of the original Kid's adventures were retouched to make him look like the newer Kid for reprints.^{[citation needed]}

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, creators of the Fantastic Four, concocted the new Kid to make the character resemble a superhero with a secret identity in order to stimulate sales for the title.^{[citation needed]}

The character appears in the 2010 miniseries Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven.

A contemporaneous version of the character appears in Six Guns.^[3]

Fictional character biography

The character's original name was Matt Hawk but a story in the 2000s retconned that his true last name was Liebowicz. He was a lawyer from Boston, Massachusetts, who was inspired to fight evil as a masked crimefighter of the 19th-century American West by the stories of the fictional Two-Gun Kid, Clay Harder. After being trained in combat by the gunfighter Ben Dancer, Liebowicz assumed the dual identities of Matt Hawk and the Two-Gun Kid. With his horse Cyclone, his partner "Boom Boom" Brown, and a pair of pistols, he became one of the West's most prolific heroes, often teaming up with the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, or the Phantom Rider. In one of his first adventures he fought an alien, and in other early outings he fought criminals who could only be called supervillains. During one adventure, he was brought to the present day via time travel and joined the superhero team of the Avengers. He fought alongside them before leaving to wander America alongside his teammate Hawkeye, and eventually returned to his own time, occasionally making a cameo appearance in other Western tales or stories of time travel.

The Two-Gun Kid: Sunset Riders miniseries revealed that Liebowicz had married, only for his wife to die during childbirth; this series also revealed that the Kid had brought a cache of modern weapons back with him from the future. The later miniseries Blaze of Glory depicted the Kid as retired from gunplay, now going by the name of Clay Harder and working as a full-time lawyer. The Rawhide Kid convinced him to return to action, but the Two-Gun Kid died in battle against the racist mercenary Nightriders, alongside his old partners Kid Colt and the Outlaw Kid.

Return of the Two-Gun Kid

In She-Hulk vol. 2, #3, Jennifer Walters, after dealing with the Time Variance Authority, is given the chance to free one time-traveling Avenger out of continuity limbo. She chooses the Two-Gun Kid. It's clarified that his heroic nature prevents him from being returned to his own time, as he would inevitably try to fix things.

In present time, he learns his previous modern-day encounters with the Avengers has resulted in his law license and other paraphernalia being kept in an Avengers safety-deposit box. Once he learns She-Hulk works for a law-firm, Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway, he tries to become her colleague. He comes to the conclusion he will never be able to catch up on current laws and becomes a bounty hunter in issue #5. His first catch is the supervillain Bushwacker.

For a time he rooms with the Awesome Android, who had reformed and was also an employee for the firm. Liebowicz travels using a twin-engine jet cycle, donated to him by his superhero friend Hawkeye.

During the company-crossover story arc "Civil War", Liebowicz became a bounty hunter and works alongside She-Hulk, helping her to apprehend supervillains. He was later sent to Arizona to lead the Desert Stars team of the Fifty State Initiative.^[4] In this capacity he is injured in Avengers: The Initiative #16, but is recovered by Avengers: The Initiaive Special #1.

The Marvels Project

In The Marvels Project, a 2009 eight-issue miniseries that explores events in the Marvel Universe leading up to the beginning of World War II and the dawn of superheroes, the Two-Gun Kid is seen as an elderly patient of Dr. Thomas Halloway. He captivates Halloway with stories of a coming "Age of Marvels," which detail the exploits of the Avengers and other modern-day Marvel heroes. Halloway believes Hawk/Liebowicz's stories are fantasies generated by his advanced age and senility. After Hawk passes away, Halloway learns Hawk bequeathed him his mask and guns, inspiring him to become the superhero the Angel.^[5] In the epilogue to the final issue, Hawk - now referred to as Matt Hawkins - is seen in the present day as a young man,^{[clarification needed]} accompanying Steve Rogers (Captain America) to the home of Halloway's grandson, Jason, to once again bequeath the mask and guns, as well as Halloway's journal, in the hopes that Jason will follow in his grandfather's footsteps.^[6]

Other versions

A new modern-day version of the character, a teenager, stars in the five-issue ensemble miniseries Six Guns (#1-4 cover-dated Jan.-March 2012), by writer Andy Diggle and artist Davide Gianfelice, and also starring the extant female mercenary Tarantula and new contemporary versions of the Marvel Old West heroes Tex Dawson a.k.a. the Western Kid; the Black Rider; and Matt Slade.^[7][8][9]

References

1. ^ The Marvels Project #8
2. ^ Two-Gun Kid (Marvel 1948 series) at the Grand Comics Database
3. ^ Six Guns #1-5, Marvel, 2011-2012
4. ^ NEWSARAMA - View Single Post - Cup o' Joe May - 23
5. ^ The Marvels Project #1, 2009
6. ^ The Marvels Project #8, 2010
7. ^ Beard, Jim (October 6, 2011). "Six Guns: Trigger Happy". Comic News (column), Marvel.com. Archived from the original on November 20, 2011. http://marvel.com/news/story/16788/six_guns_trigger_happy. 
8. ^ Beard, Jim (June 23, 2011). "Six Guns: Locked and Loaded". Comic News (column), Marvel.com. Archived from the original on November 20, 2011. http://marvel.com/news/story/16160/six_guns_locked_and_loaded. 
9. ^ "Six Guns (2012)" at The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators. Archived from the original (required scrolldown) November 20, 2011

External links

• Don Markstein's Toonopedia: The Two-Gun Kid (Clay Harder)
• Don Markstein's Toonopedia: The Two-Gun Kid (Matt Hawk)