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Reno Browne was the stage name of Josephine Ruth Clarke[1] (April 20, 1921 – May 15, 1991), an American equestrian and B-movie actress during the late 1940s and into the 1950s.

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Reno Browne was based on a Western movie character popularised by actress Josephine Ruth Clarke, who featured in several late 1940s films alongside such luminaries as Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Wakely and Whip Wilson. Along with Dale Evans and Annie Oakley, Reno was one of a select few female Western characters to be granted their own comic book, published by Marvel Comics, albeit just three issues in 1950. The Reno Browne featured in the comic however was very different from the rather more winsome version of the character portrayed by Clarke on the silver screen. Comic book Reno, written and illustrated by Russ Heath, was the tough ranch forewoman of the Lazy X ranch, working for her uncle, Smoky McLean and enjoying a romance with her senior ranch-hand, Stretch Wilson. Reno was tough, heroic and, as illustrated in the page featured above, as skilled in unarmed combat as she was in the use of her six guns. Reno regularly battled rustlers, outlaws, thieves and owlhoots of every stripe in an effort to protect her ranch and the nearby town. She also lacked Dale’s and Annie’s diffidence in tackling the bad guys and seemed to delight in knocking them cold, roping them ignominiously and generally humiliating them, although she did usually hand the chastened crooks over to the local sheriff after having defeated them.

Perhaps the field was too crowded with Western gals, or perhaps Reno could not compete with the TV shows and regular movies that featured Annie and Dale, given the infrequency of Clarke’s films, because the title did not last beyond its third issue in September 1950 and was closed due to falling sales, with the excellently drawn Reno not even featuring as a back up story in any subsequent Marvel Western comics. So Reno, for all her feistiness, verve and independence, was rapidly confined to comic book history and therefore became something of a footnote. However, with four stories to an issue, she left a reasonably sized back catalogue which is well worth exploring.

The page featured is from the Reno Browne story, The Carnival of Crime, which appeared in Reno Browne, Hollywood’s Greatest Cowgirl #51 (June 1950).

Source: readallcomics.com

#women in comics #golden age of comics #marvel #Reno Browne #western heroines #western stories #Josephine ruth clarke