Gunsmoke is a Western-themed Superhero form The Golden Age of Comic Books, created by Graham Ingels and published by Youthful Publications in Gunsmoke #1-16. It concerns a mysterious hero called Gunsmoke riding the West, looking for evil to stop. He prefers to use standard detective work and legal justice, but will kill any murderer he encounters.
Not to be confused with the radio show, the TV show, the video game, or Atlas/Marvel's Gunsmoke Western comic book, which featured Kid Colt and the Two-Gun Kid.
This comic contains examples of:
- Amoral Attorney: The Big Bad of Gunsmoke #2 is a young lawyer who secretly runs a cattle rustling operation.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Played with; Gunsmoke can do it, due to his Improbable Aiming Skills, but anybody else just shoots their foe in the hand.
- Bond One-Liner: From Gunsmoke #12, after Pedro knocks a guy off a horse:Pedro: "Santa Maria! I take you down from your high horse, no?"
- Clear My Name: Gunsmoke and Pedro are often arrested for the crimes their foes commit, adding more of a personal stake to the adventures.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Big Bad of Gunsmoke #3 is a freight boss willing to resort to murder to drive away his competition.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In Gunsmoke #1, Gunsmoke is summoned by Pedro via smoke signals. This element never appears again.
- Frame-Up:
- The baddies of Gunsmoke #1 frame the son of a rancher for murder in hopes of forcing the rancher to give up his land.
- The villains in Gunsmoke #7 frame the son of their late boss for a bank robbery and kidnap his girlfriend after he refuses to join them in the robbery.
- In Gunsmoke #9, Gunsmoke himself is framed for killing a man in a bar fight.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Big Bad of Gunsmoke #6 is a thug trying to seek hidden silver mine. As it turns out, he worked for a criminal who massacred a rival gang to get the mine, but disappeared and never came back for it.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Gunsmoke can shoot the fuse off a bomb from several yards away.
- Karma Houdini: Curly Joe, the Greater-Scope Villain of Gunsmoke #6, vanished without a trace after massacring rival gang over a silver mine.
- Knight Errant: Gunsmoke wanders the West, awaiting the smoke signal that calls him to justice.-Wyman: "He's got places to go, where folks just like us need his help! I don't figure again till he needs to find 'em!"
- One-Word Title
- Our Werewolves Are Different: These ones transfer their curse genetically.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Gunsmoke does have a tendency to call Native Americans "redskins."
The story is set in the 1800's, after all. - Politically Incorrect Villain: The Big Bad of Gunsmoke #14 is a Native American chief who wants to eliminate white people from his land.
- Protagonist Title: "Gunsmoke" is the name the hero goes by.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Big Bad of Gunsmoke #4 tries to lead a coup against the mayor of a town so he can wipe out their dam and buy up the land for cheap.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax:
- The baddies of Gunsmoke #11 use animatronics that resemble creatures in cave paintings to disguise and remove any witnesses to their plots to raid a gold mine on a reservation.
- The baddies of Gunsmoke #13 dress like skeletons to exploit a local legend about an Indian Burial Ground in order to steal cattle.
- The Sociopath: To fulfill his cattle rustling ambitions, Jim Carr manipulates a town into a giant range war and kills his own father in law, whose daughter he married entirely to better ingratiate himself into the community.
- Starter Villain: The first foe we see is Ringo Moody, a cattle rustler and gambler trying to force a rancher to give him his property. He's gunned down within eight pages of his introduction.
- Vigilante Execution: Gunsmoke will do this if his current foe murders somebody.
- Walking the Earth: Or in this case, riding The Wild West.
- War for Fun and Profit: The baddies of Gunsmoke #2 plot to start a range war in order to steal both sides' livestock from under their noses.
