Who's This? A red-headed Blackfoot.
The facts: A white boy raised by a Blackfoot, he grew up to be the frontier hero named Firehair! A Joe Kubert original introduced Showcase #85 (September 1969), his three-issue try-out in Showcase did not lead to a series. He would get a few back-up strips a couple of years later in (Son of) Tomahawk and an occasional appearance beyond, usually when time travel was involved (the Rick Veitch-penned Swamp Thing #85 in which he teams up with Hawk Son of Tomahawk to rescue El Diablo, for example, but also Crisis on Infinite Earths, Armageddon: The Alien Agenda, and Guy Gardner's Zero Hour tie-in). His creator got to draw him again in Joe Kubert Presents #4 (2013). His biggest continuous role was in 2008's The War That Time Forgot mini-series, as one of the time-tossed warriors trapped on Dinosaur Island. Blackest Night's Weird Western Tales issue zombified him and "confirmed" that he was dead.
How you could have heard of him: In all the Multiversal madness of the last decade, you might have noted him as a member of Earth-18's Justice Riders.
Example story: Showcase #87 (December 1969) "The Shaman!" by Joe Kubert
Quick recap of the origin is pretty clever...
But don't get attached to Firehair's horse Kahit, because though we're spared a clear shot of it, he's thrown into the Grand Canyon at the opening of the story when a mountain lion jumps the young adopted Blackfoot. Joe Kubert is great at Man vs. Nature stuff, so I'll let the art speak for itself.
I suppose it's possible the horse never fell, and Firehair just couldn't climb back up to it. We'll say that's it. For the kids. Firehair instead climbs/slides down into the deep crevasse where he finds a mysterious tribe led by a blind, toothless shaman. Like a madman, he starts to call Firehair evil (is it the hair?) and plunges a voodoo doll into a basin to drown our hero where he stands (as per the cover). It's just a warning glug, and the strange braves imprison him in the Circle of Venom overnight.
Kubert continues to play on the idea that the Grand Canyon as a sort of hellmouth as Firehair is next taken to a giant cave where the shaman summons the Mighty Spirit of the Nether-World.
A double-page spread! The book is Showcase, and it's Showcasing Kubert's art as much as the try-out hero. And things just get better and crazier. Firehair is tied to a blasted tree trunk by the waters of the Black Pool, a sacrifice to He-That-Holds-the-World! Hey, who told these Native Americans about Discworld?
(Or Egyptian myth, to be fair.) With his warrior's cry on his lips, Firehair breaks his bonds AND the cave's stalactites!
And then... wakes up?! The art is well beyond 1969's standards, but it's still the Silver Age, so the story must end with a twist. It was all a dream! The Navajo explain he was delirious from his infected wounds, but was nursed back to health over three days by their kindly shaman. So any calumny towards the Canyon tribes is dispelled, and Kubert got to draw monsters without sacrificing his strip's grounded historicity. Everybody wins!
Well, except Firehair who, despite glowing letters of recommendation at the back, would not get his own series and be mostly forgotten. Jimmy Olsen's book was also in trouble at this point, so can chalk it up to gingers falling out of favor?
Who's Next? DC's Archie.
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