Coming (out) soon: the world's first gay superhero

The Rawhide Kid, killed off by Marvel Comics in 1979, is back from the dead. And how. He's out, he's proud and he's got conservative America very hot under the collar. David Randall reports

The first openly gay title hero in comic book history is about to hit the bookstands. Marvel Comics, the people who brought you Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, is reviving one of its star characters and taking him proudly out of the closet. He is the Rawhide Kid, the last of the great cowboy heroes to be killed off in the Seventies, and now the first to come back. And how.

Still the fastest gun in the West and the scourge of unshaven hoodlums everywhere, he's now dressed better than ever and has a line in repartee that would knock the froth off a beer at 20 paces. In British terms, it's the equivalent of Dan Dare returning as a very urban spaceman. The reaction to the Kid's comeback has surprised even Marvel's controversy-hardened staff. "We've had some big stories in recent years," says Brian Reinert, a spokesman, "but nothing compares to the buzz around this. It's huge."

The issue has created a storm across America, provoked a feisty debate on CNN's Crossfire and stirred the moral majority to hitherto unknown depths of invective. The American Family Association said Marvel was sending a message "that it's going to be dirty, deviant, nasty and supportive of the pro-homosexual agenda"; internet message boards were awash with less printable comments; and the Culture and Family Institute weighed in with: "We'll be holding our breath for the issue in which Rawhide Kid discovers that he's got rectal warts, Aids or some other by-product of homosexual practices." They'll have to hold their breath for a long time. The Rawhide Kid, created in 1955 and always something of a natty dresser, will not have a partner, and nor will there be any gay storylines in which he rides off into the sunset with the rancher's son. According to Reinert, the Kid is a worldly, intelligent gunslinger who just happens to be gay.

Cathy Renna, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which monitors the media on behalf of gays, agrees: "He's a big, tough, handsome, well-dressed character, with a neat line in sassy, sharp comebacks." The New York Post described the Kid as "Go West meets the Old West".

Ms Renna has seen advance copies of the comic and is decidedly supportive, despite some people's misgivings about just how camp the Kid is. The first issue is entitled The Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather and it has him watching The Lone Ranger and saying: "I think that mask and powder blue outfit are fantastic. I can certainly see why that Indian follows him around." But, as Ms Renna says: "He's camp, but not over the top. No one's going to be picketing Marvel."

Neither are the townspeople he will rescue in every issue going to be objecting. He might be more camp than fire to the readers, yet to the folks in the West he's the high-noon hero who runs the baddies out of town. Neither, despite anti-gay groups' suggestions to the contrary, is he aimed at children. His books will have a seal which marks them for sale to over-18s only, which is, in America, most of the market anyway. He is, says Mr Reinert, humour for babyboomers. He is also the first title hero to come out. Other comics have had supporting characters that are gay, and anti-discrimination has been an issue in storylines, but the Kid is the pioneering top banana.

Ironically, the Rawhide Kid was originally created in the mid-Fifties partly in response to concerns about the influence of blood-and-thunder comics on young minds. Just as Hollywood brought in its self-regulatory Hays Code in 1930, the comics industry introduced in 1954 a Comics Code Authority and a raft of clean-cut heroes, Rawhide among them. In the Sixties and Seventies Rawhide became one of Marvel's top names, before being killed off in 1979.

His rebirth, conceived at a brainstorming session some months ago, is part of a Marvel policy of taking classic characters and presenting them anew through modern eyes. Working on the new series are writer Ron Zimmerman, a collaborator of Howard Stern's, and artist John Severin, who drew the Kid back in his former incarnation. His revival, in February (March for the UK) is part of Marvel's own rejuvenation. In 1996 the company went into bankruptcy, but a wholesale commercial reorganisation has seen its fortunes reborn. Debts were paid off, the firm moved into profit and, in the last year alone, its share price has gone up sixfold. A powerful reason for that is the licensing of Marvel characters to movies. The X-Men was the first screen outing for the firm's superheroes, followed, very profitably, by Spider-Man. And next year sees the release of more movie Marvels: Daredevil, an X-Men sequel, and, in June, The Incredible Hulk.

There is already talk of a Rawhide Kid movie, but a little cleaning up may be required – not sexually, but politically: in one of the Rawhide Kid episodes the setting is a town called Tombstone, presided over by a Mayor Bush who is nervy about his re-election chances. After all, he tells the under-performing sheriff, he only won the first time round with help from his father and brother. So will the Rawhide Kid ride into town to save Mayor Bush? We'll just have to wait until he hits the bookstands to find out.