Henry McCarty

Henry McCarty is the comics rendition of the legendary frontier outlaw better known as Billy the Kid, the notorious gunfighter of the American West whose real birth name he shares. He appears in Golden Age adventure tales alongside similarly storied characters.

Stepping out of the Golden Age and into comics history, Henry McCarty made his four-color debut in Doc Savage Comics #1 in 1940, brought to life by the creative talents of Walter Gibson and Vernon Greene. This Toby Publications character went on to share pages with a remarkable and eclectic crowd — Billy the Kid, William H. Bonney, John Wayne, and even Felix the Cat — making for some of the most colorful company in mid-century comics. With appearances stretching across nearly eight decades from 1940 to 2018 and a home in titles like Billy the Kid Adventure Magazine and Al Capp's Li'l Abner, Henry McCarty proves to be a surprisingly durable presence in the catalog. For collectors drawn to the wild, wonderfully varied world of Golden Age and beyond, this is a character whose long, quirky publishing journey rewards a closer look.