so, for a little while in the 1990s and 2000s, Marvel was doing an interesting thing where their Official Handbooks had specific themes and were presented as collections of in-universe documents. the most famous of these is probably 2007’s Marvel Tarot, which introduced the Well Beyond the Worlds (which we finally got to actually see last year in Resurrection of Magneto #1).
so, earlier today, I was reading through a handbook from 2006, which was focused on all of Marvel’s various cowboy characters. y’know, Red Wolf, Masked Raider, Two-Gun Kid, and a bunch of names that don’t mean anything to most people. but then I stumbled upon this page, which I found very interesting.
the actual file is about a kinda interesting character, but the part I want to talk about is the framing device. essentially, these two guys are talking about putting Wesley Snipes in a cowboy movie, because, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this:
in the Marvel Universe, cowboy movies are as popular as superhero movies are in our world.
like, that’s very clearly the analogy they’re going for. they specifically mention Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) and Ben Affleck (Daredevil), and there’s even a cute meta-joke where Christian Bale (Batman) is apparently starring in a Jonah Hex movie — in case you don’t know, Jonah Hex is DC’s most prominent cowboy hero.
it’s essentially the exact same beat as the pirate comics in Watchmen, but focused on films instead of comics. I think it’s really interesting, and I’d love to see someone bring back this idea. I mean, Wonder Man and Mary Jane Watson are both famous actors; why not have one of them work on a Rawhide Kid movie or something?
