Okay, okay, okay! So a long time ago I talked about this character named Comet who was an angel/centaur/alien/bisexual-Link below-and I thought that would be the only instance of me talking about a stupid horse-themed character. I was wrong. So. Very. Wrong. Today's Z-Lister is Marvel's Kid Colt. Someone stop me.
While the original Kid Colt was a Wild West hero created back in 1942 when Marvel Comics was still going by Timely Comics, this newer incarnation was created in 2000 by Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley in "Heroes Reborn: Young Allies #1". And while the original Kid Colt would be a cult favorite character brought back and retold numerous times to headline Marvel's Western comics, this incarnation fell into a hole. A hole that-itself-would fall into a bigger hole. You see The Young Allies were a spin-off of The Invaders (Captain America, Namor The Sub-Mariner, and the android known as The Human Torch) in the same way The Teen Titans were spun from The Justice League's sidekicks. The Young Allies would be reestablished in 2000 with new characters like our horsey friend here.
Sadly this version of The Young Allies was created in 2000 during Marvel's "Heroes Reborn" era. Marvel Comics had outsourced their main titles to third-party creators and publishers with the hopes that these new superstar artists and writers could reshape Marvel characters for a modern audience. Despite the expected overflow of violence, vulgarity, poor writing, and dated artwork the event sold well. In 2002, Marvel ended Heroes Reborn to continue their established canon. And not a moment too soon.
Elric Freedom Whitemane is Kid Colt's actual name. "Freedom" is one hell of a middle name, I'll give that to him. But the name Elric reminding me of that short guy from "Full Metal Alchemist" gives me some goosebumps regarding this character and that dog-daughter thing. Anyway Elric's story is one as old as time. When he was a kid the government asked to do some tests on him in return for money. His parents were hippies so that automatically meant they didn't have jobs to make money and so they sold their son to the government. Didn't hippies hate the government? These tests spliced Elric's DNA with alien DNA. Specifically a race called Kymellians. Kymellians apparently share a resemblance to Earth horses as the splicing of DNA gave Elric the ability to turn into a humanoid horse. Beta Ray Bill, eat your heart out. Taking the name of the much more appealing Western hero, Elric uses his newfound powers to fight crime as Kid Colt. He joined a new incarnation of The Young Allies and gave them a great means of transportation. And no, I don't mean they rode on him. Sicko.
Along with turning into that one friend with a horse mask (Connor...), Kid Colt could create pocket dimensions. Empty realms of existence where he can travel into and out of. He can use these pocket dimensions to store valuables for later, but he more often jump from dimension to dimension to simulate teleportation. Funny enough, Nightcrawler of The X-Men teleports by jumping through another dimension. Only he's cool! Oh and Kid Colt is a vegetarian. More reason not to like him.
Long-time readers will know I already dislike animal-people. There are exceptions, of course. Howard The Duck, Rocket Raccoon, Beast, but in cases like this Kid Colt and Tigra and Comet I just find them disturbing. There's always that trope of someone's personality being reflective of an animal, but making that reflection the appearance of the character is just gross to think about. Like, does Kid Colt use a bathroom or a stable? If he sprains an ankle do I have to shoot him? And don't get me started on his "Italian Stallion" down South. All and all, this character was a misguided attempt at reviving a known name and his obscurity is a mercy killing of a bad concept. At this rate he'd be better off replaced with a teenaged black girl, but still keep the name.
Thanks for reading!
Would you ride Kid Colt? Actually, don't answer that.
The post about Comet: http://panelbiter.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-angel-of-loveand-horses.html
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