Gunsmoke Western's Antedi-Lee-vian Kid Colt Writer

In an interview where Joe Gill was describing how he wrote at such a sustained pace, his example was not any one of the many Charlton characters but Kid Colt at Timely/Atlas. One sign of his scripting is "This was [situation]," as here on the splash of "No Place to Turn," as well as the splash caption of "The Gunhawks of Terror Street" and the first caption after the splash in "Showdown Street."

The Atlas Implosion occurred after Gunsmoke Western #42. There were enough Kid Colt stories on hand to lead off two more issues when the title returned, and then Stan Lee took up writing (and signing) the Gunsmoke Western Kid Colt stories.

#32 is the first issue, as the title takes over Black Rider's numbering. On the Kid's own magazine and the many other anthology titles he also starred in at the time, Gill started writing the character in 1954. (UPDATE: see the comments--I had a non-Kid Colt story down for #37 but have fixed that mistake.]

Joe Gill's Kid Colt scripts in
Gunsmoke Western

Dec/55	32	The Plunderers
Feb/56	33	Never Say Die
Apr/	34	Badman's Bluff
Jun/	35	Date with Destiny
Aug/	36	Clean-Up in Buckhorn
Oct/	37	Double-Cross Trail
Dec/	38	The Phantom of Caribou Flats
Jan/57	39	No Place to Turn
Apr/	40	Showdown Street
Jun/	41	Two Guns for Freedom
Aug/	42	The Gunhawks of Terror Street
Nov/	43	Trail to Tombstone
Jan/58	44	Gunhawk's Mecca

As a bonus: this is the only Jack Oleck script that jumps out at me in the entire run of Gunsmoke Western. With so many anthology titles cancelled in the Implosion, it took a while to fit in the non-series stories from a suddenly huge inventory.

Jack Oleck's backup script in
Gunsmoke Western

Jan/59

50

The Stranger from Red River