Rex Hart

First Appearance: Rex Hart #6 (August 1949).
Appearances: Rex Hart #6-8.
Years Active: 1870s.

Rex Hart is the foreman at the Bar-Z Ranch. With his stalwart horse Warrior, who is intelligent enough to obey a number of Rex's commands, some of them complex, Rex fights evil and crime and "polecats" and "rannies" and "owlhoots" of every description. Rex's best friends are the men under him: Candy, who loves candy and is exceptionally strong (he catches a falling circus support pole without much effort, but lifting the pole off of Candy requires several bystanders) but is not, shall we say, the brightest bulb in the lamp ("Candy, if muscles were brains you'd be a genius!"); Red, a happy-go-lucky type; and Keno, a Gabby Hayes type with a peg-leg.

Rex is (of course) good with his guns ("like a striking puma"), is an expert bronc-buster, and has that mindset that refuses to go to jail when he is innocent; in one case he shot the gun out a sheriff's hand and then went on the run rather than wait for justice to take its course. Candy, Red, and Keno are devoted enough to him that they are willing to go on the run with Rex, but he (naturally) refuses to hear any of it. Rex works for "Miss Juanita Shore," who owns the Bar-Z, and there's a heavy implication that Rex and Juanita are sweeties.