Tim Holt #6
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTim Holt #6 (May 1949, Magazine Enterprises) is the first appearance of the Calico Kid — the alter ego of U.S. Marshal Rex Fury — who would evolve into the Golden Age Ghost Rider, one of the most important costumed heroes to emerge from the western genre. That five-issue Calico Kid run, launched here, gave the creative team the raw material they needed to reinvent a struggling back-up strip into a character whose DNA eventually wound its way into Marvel Comics decades later. The issue therefore stands at the very beginning of a lineage that runs from a 1949 ten-cent western anthology to the motorcycle-riding supernatural anti-hero familiar to modern readers. For students of Golden Age genre fiction, it marks the moment the Tim Holt title quietly planted the seed of its own most consequential character.
This issue is an anthology containing three stories: "Gunslinger's Chance," in which Tim Holt investigates the murder of Sheriff Sanders and confronts the outlaw Slim Sallow; "The Stolen Town," where Tim pursues outlaws who have absconded with a shipment; and "The Calico Kid," featuring the outlaw Red Rory and a woman named Tess Ford who becomes involved in a conflict at the Palace Saloon in Silver City, ultimately leading to a confrontation where Tim and others must stop Red Rory's criminal activities.
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The Tim Holt series was launched by Magazine Enterprises — founded in 1943 by former DC and Columbia Comics editor Vin Sullivan — to capitalize on actor Charles 'Tim' Holt III's rising Hollywood profile, with the publisher reportedly expecting enormous circulation for the title. By issue #6, editor Raymond C. Krank and writer Ray Krank introduced the Calico Kid backup strip, with the inaugural episode drawn by artist Ernie Bache, who handled only this single chapter before Dick Ayers took over from issue #7 onward and would go on to illustrate virtually the entire Golden Age Ghost Rider run. The Ghost Rider character himself was co-created by Sullivan, Krank, and Ayers and reportedly drew inspiration from the song 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' and Disney's 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' with the Calico Kid serving as the deliberate stepping-stone to that more ambitious concept.
Trivia · 7 facts
- First appearance of the Calico Kid, whose secret identity is U.S. Marshal Rex Fury — the character who will become the Golden Age Ghost Rider in Tim Holt #11 (November 1949).
- The Calico Kid backup strip in this issue was written by Ray Krank and drawn by Ernie Bache — Bache's only contribution to the series.
- Dick Ayers, who would become the definitive Ghost Rider artist, debuted on the Calico Kid strip in Tim Holt #7, directly following this issue.
- The Calico Kid is presented as a mysterious figure posing as a chuck wagon cook while secretly investigating criminal activity; his true identity as Rex Fury is not revealed until later issues.
- The series was part of the Magazine Enterprises line overseen by Vin Sullivan (a veteran of DC Comics), with Raymond C. Krank serving as editor.
- The Calico Kid/Rex Fury character ran for five issues before being transformed into the Ghost Rider in Tim Holt #11, a creative decision driven by the need to revitalize what had been a generic and underperforming back-up strip.
- After the Ghost Rider's debut proved popular, the character eventually spun off into his own 14-issue series (published within the A-1 Comics anthology framework), and the trademark was later picked up by Marvel Comics after Magazine Enterprises ceased publishing in 1958.
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Reprinted in Cowboy Comics #23 (1951)
Key issues in Tim Holt
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