The Apache Kid debuted as the cover feature, drawn by a young John Buscema, of Two-Gun Western #5. The writer co-creator is unknown. He received his own title the following month, premiering as The Apache Kid #53 and then running as Apache Kid #2-19. Stories also ran in the omnibus titles Two-Gun Western #5-9 and Wild Western #15-22. After that initial Buscema story and at least two by Joe Maneely, the bulk of the book's run would be penciled and inked by future Silver AgeX-Men artist Werner Roth. After The Apache Kid ended with #19, its numbering continued as the anthology seriesWestern Gunfighters, where the character did not appear. Apache Kid reprints, however, did appear in Marvel's 1970s omnibus series also titled Western Gunfighters. The Kid shared its pages with new Ghost Rider stories, as well as anthological and Western-hero reprints of a changing lineup that included Atlas' Black Rider, the Western Kid, Wyatt Earp, and later Kid Colt. Apache Kid reprints ran from #2-33, the final issue.
Other versions
The character returned in Apache Skies, a four-issue miniseries starring the Rawhide Kid and two persons called the Apache Kid: Dazii AloysiusKare, and his wife, Rosa. This was a sequel to the miniseries Blaze of Glory, which specifically retconned that the naively clean-cut Marvel Western stories of years past were merelydime novel fictions of the characters' actual lives. Unrelated characters called the Apache Kid appeared in Fox Comics' Western Outlaws #21, and Youthful Comics' Indian Fighter #5.
child Alan Krandal was raised by Apache chief Red Hawk and his wife after being orphaned. When grown, he took on a "civilian" identity as cowboy Aloysius Kare, changing to his warpaint outfit to fight outlaws both white and Native American, and generally protect both groups of people. Captain Bill Gregory of the nearby fort was his "white brother" who also respected the elder Red Hawk's counsel. Unlike many other Western comics of the 1950s, Apache Kid generally presented the indigenous Americans in the same light as Caucasians, and made distinctions among the various tribes.
