Once the scourge of Wild West outlaws, the Rawhide Kid was always so busy fighting crime in his 1950s comic strip that he never had time for a girlfriend. Or at least that’s what he said.

Because when he makes his return to the bookstalls in February ‘The Kid’ will re-emerge as the first ever gay lead character in the history of Marvel Comics.

Sporting a white cowboy hat fashioned from Canadian beaver pelts and powder blue leather suit ‘to die for’, the character will take the lead in ‘Rawhide Kid: Slap-Leather’, a new mini series of comics that will run to six issues. Though obviously aimed at an grown up audience, the new title will be far from explicit in its content, allowing the audience to share in the joke about the Kid’s ‘special secret.’

The writer will be a regular contributor to the popular US comedy, the Howard Stern Show, Ron Zimmerman, and the artist will be John Severin, who worked on the original comic strip series.

A lot of the humour will come from the Kid’s reactions to other characters such as Wild Bill Hickok and The Lone Ranger, and their abject failure to realise what makes him so ‘different’.

"I think that mask and powder-blue outfit are fantastic," the Kid says of the Lone Ranger at one point. "I can certainly see why that Indian follows him around."