Fox Universe

The Immortal Gunslinger (Old West)

WACO KID

First appearance - Mystery Men Comics 1, August 1939 to Mystery Men Comics 3, October 1939.

Alter ego - Jed Adams

Group affiliation - Wild Bunch (1880's), Agent of City of Flames (1920's +), Mystery Men of America (WWII)

In his original appearances, the Waco Kid was a generic cowboy riding around the old west on his white horse, Flash, and fighting outlaws like Brazos Teale and Killer Barkus. In his third and final appearance he fights anonymous crooked gamblers.

On Earth-F, the kid is Jed Adams, an adventurer active between roughly 1867 and 1886. During this period he met other heroes of the old west, including the mysterious Phantom Ranger (sometimes called Phantom Rider). Jed and the Rider struck up a friendship and would often team up to fight owlhoots and villains with strange gimmicks. After a few years, Jed found himself being drawn deeper into the Ranger's world - they encountered masked and costumed outlaws, men and women with strange abilities and even supernatural creatures.

In the early 1870's, the duo became a trio when the pair encountered the easygoing Tumbleweed Kid (affectionately known to them as Tumba).

At one point later in the 1870's the Waco Kid encountered the beautiful but deadly outlaw known as Two Gun Sal. He made it his mission, first to bring her to justice and then to redeem her.

Eventually Sal's story came to an end in 1883 ... or so it seemed. When Sal was supposedly mortally wounded in a confrontation with the law, Jed was on hand to spirit her away and into old west legend. Though it was touch and go and her recovery took the better part of a year, Sal recovered and Jed let the rumor of her demise spread throughout the west. He had started to pen a diary of his adventures by this point in the early to mid 1880's, and now began to write pulp novellas of his own exploits and stories he had heard (or witnessed firsthand) about others. His "Western Thriller: The End of Two Gun Sal." was widely read and helped perpetuate the myth.

Late in 1886, Jed and Sal were settled on a ranch when a telegram arrived, calling on them for help. Jed had learned some years earlier that the Phantom Ranger had acted as an agent for eastern mystics from a hidden city in the far off land of Tibet. He had already been instrumental in helping drive back the occasional creature from a place called "The Realm Beyond". The Ranger had sworn to him that he would not call again unless the safety of the entire earth was threatened - and the long awaited and wished against day had come.

Minions from the Realm Beyond (later to be known as The Fourth Dimension when Dr. Phillip 'Flip" Falcon "discovered" it in the late 1930's), some of whom had been on Earth for hundreds of years were working towards opening a major breach between dimensions at a time and place where the veil between spheres was at its thinnest ... in the Colorado badlands!

Six heroes of the old west answered the Ranger's call and the "Wild Bunch" rode that day and night of November 1886.

Led by The Phantom Ranger, they were - The Waco Kid, Two Gun Sal, The Tumbleweed Kid, Sheriff Don Cook, Ranger Tim Haley and The Apache Kid.

Hired mortal thugs who didn't comprehend what they were defending, stood in their way - and as the masked and cloaked Phantom Ranger rode straight for the growing dimensional maw, the others engaged the gunnies arrayed in its defense.

Don Cook was killed almost immediately, while Ranger Tim Haley perished in the crossfire, but the others broke through.

Meanwhile the Phantom Ranger reached the portal - he knew from briefings with lamas of the City of Flames that a machine had been set up in the mouth of the portal which kept the hole in space and time open. The Ranger flung himself into the energy vortex, armed with a stack of fizzing dynamite - attempting to throw it in would only cause the explosive to bounce off the energy, but a flesh and blood man could enter and set the dynamite off right on the machine, causing a chain reaction that would implode the tear and seal the breach.