9. Blaze of Glory
What Is It? Before Stan Lee revolutionized comics with the Fantastic Four in the 60s, Marvel (then Atlas Comics) published a number of western books, featuring characters like the Two-Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, the Outlaw Kid (they sure liked using kid in their cowboy names), and the Phantom Rider (a predecessor of the Ghost Rider). Despite taking place in the Old West, these characters have interacted with the modern-day Marvel Universe (Two-Gun Kid even joined the Avengers for a time when he was stranded in the future). In 2000, a series called Blaze of Glory: The Last Ride of the Western Heroes, by John Ostrander and Leonardo Manco, was released. It featured many of Marvels western heroes, re-imagined in a more realistic setting and the colorful adventures of the past described as being dime novel adventures.
How To Do It Right? The western was once thought to be a dead genre, but its starting to make a comeback. Django Unchained proved to be extremely popular, and Hell on Wheels is AMCs second highest-rated show, behind The Walking Dead. So theres clearly an audience there for a well-done western series. A good way to do it would be to take a cue from Blaze of Glory, both in terms of depicting it in a more realistic fashion and, instead of building a series around just one western hero, build it around all of them. It could feature a rotating cast, with different episodes focusing on the different heroes. One episode could have the Phantom Rider, another could feature the Rawhide Kid, and so on.