Two Gun Kid #32
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTwo-Gun Kid #32 is a representative mid-run artifact of Atlas Comics' western output at the height of the genre's postwar popularity, arriving at a moment when Stan Lee's editorial office was producing a remarkable volume of western titles simultaneously. While it introduces no landmark characters, it showcases the workhorse storytelling economy of the Clay Harder era — anthology-style short stories, a prose text piece, and a Joe Maneely cover — that kept the title one of Marvel's longest-running pre-superhero franchises. The issue sits within the uninterrupted Clay Harder run that would continue until #60 (1962), when the character was retconned out of existence to make way for the superhero-influenced Matt Hawk version. As such, it documents the original, unmaskless Two-Gun Kid at the zenith of Atlas-era western comics before the Marvel Universe era reshaped the title entirely.
In "The Gunslinger!", a Western artist returns to the frontier of his youth to paint a portrait, only to find his old friends changed by time—one now proud and distant, the other still kind and grounded. The story unfolds with quiet tension and stark realism, capturing the weight of memory and shifting loyalty. Cover by Joe Maneely, whose dynamic lines bring the era’s grit and drama to life.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
By April 1956, when this issue was released, Atlas Comics — the company operating between the Timely Comics and Marvel Comics identities — was churning out a dense slate of western titles under Stan Lee's editorial hand. Lee oversaw Two-Gun Kid #32 as editor, with the interior stories written and drawn by Chuck Miller, a reliable Atlas bullpen contributor who handled several simultaneous western assignments. Joe Maneely, one of Atlas's most prolific and versatile cover artists, supplied the cover before his untimely death in 1958 cut short a career that had become central to the publisher's visual identity. Stan Goldberg handled the color work, a role he filled across much of the Atlas western line during this period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Release date: April 13, 1956; cover date: August 1956 — published by Atlas Comics (Marvel's 1950s publishing identity).
- Lead story is 'The Gunslinger!' — written and penciled by Chuck Miller, featuring the Clay Harder version of the Two-Gun Kid (not the later Matt Hawk incarnation).
- Cover art by Joe Maneely, with colors by Stan Goldberg — both central figures in Atlas's western comics production of this era.
- Stan Lee served as editor, consistent with his role overseeing the entire Atlas western line throughout the 1950s.
- The issue contains multiple short anthology stories plus a prose text piece ('The Tribute'), the standard format for Atlas western titles of the period.
- Minor first appearances in the issue include Joe T. Stevens and Mrs. Barker — supporting characters with no subsequent significance in the broader Marvel continuity.
- The Clay Harder Two-Gun Kid starring in this issue would continue until Two-Gun Kid #60 (November 1962), when he was retconned into a dime-novel legend to make way for the Matt Hawk version created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
- No known reprint of this specific issue's stories has been confirmed across indexing sources.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Two-Gun Kid #19 (1956), Two Gun Kid #44 (1958), Kid Colt Outlaw #94 (1960), Gunsmoke Western #67 (1961), Héroes del Oeste #46
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