LGBT Character Of The Week: The Rawhide Kid

This week we take a look at the Rawhide Kid, Marvel's red-headed and now gay (or not?) cowboy. The Rawhide Kid is actually Johhny Bart, a gunslinger of incredible skill and talent who through unfortunate circumstances is unjustly wanted as an outlaw.

More specifically, we're looking at the Kid because in 2003 a new limited series, "Slap Leather", revealed him to be homosexual. There was some controversy over this series as it portrays him as rather effeminate in nature, and many cried that the character had been turned into a stereotype.

To make things more complicated, afterwards the book 'Marvel Universe, A-Z' lists him as only pretending to be gay, to confuse others. Joe Quesada has since said this was a mistake, made in an attempt to make sense of the characters multiple origins (Rawhide Kid was originally created for Atlas comics, later bought by Marvel). Joe Q. is also on record saying Johhny is still gay and will remain so.