Marvels Project and Marvel Western

[gregorynbaker]

I was thinking a bit about Marvel Western heroes. They, especially Kid Colt, Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, and Ghost Rider/Night Rider/Phantom Rider/etc., appear in time travel stories with the Avengers, etc. While I am not interested in every single adventure they ever had, I am interested in their origins. These were originally published in Atlas and Marvel comics of the 50s and 60s. Then in 2000, Blaze of Glory came out and retconned all(some?) of their adventures as "dime novel tales", much as Two-Gun Kid 60 replaced the previous 59 issues as "dime novel tales". Blaze of Glory tells the end of their adventures, and includes the deaths of Two-Gun Kid and Kid Colt.

Meanwhile, Two-Gun Kid traveled to the future (our present) for a time before returning back to the past. Now he is back in the present again (She-Hulk v.2), with the assumption that at some point he will return to the past again. So his fate is kind of up in the air right now.

Then the Marvels Project 1 came out, which attempted to create a full circle by having the dying Matt Hawk, spouting visions of a Marvel-ous future, give his mask to Thomas Halloway as he became Angel.

You can see the problem. If Matt Hawk is dead in the streets in 1885 in Blaze of Glory 4, how can he be alive to give Angel his mask in 1939 in Marvels Project 1?

Is Marvels Project not in continuity? (It seems like the sort of thing that would be followed upon in Captain America, etc. in the future) Is Blaze of Glory/Apache Skies not in continuity? If that the case, are the 50s and 60s stories still retconned? I have NONE of these issues (except Marvels Project 1), so I was wondering what anybody else thought.