Battle #40

Atlas Comics' Battle #40 from 1955 delivers the gritty, ground-level war action the series was known for, promising "all brand-new battle adventures" across its pages. Russ Heath and Joe Maneely's cover puts you right in the thick of it — a helmeted soldier in combat gear charges forward firing his submachine gun amid a jungle riverbank, with a second GI pressing low in the background beneath a sky blazing red through the palm trees. Teasing both "The Saga of The Attack!" and a story "torn from true combat" called "The Eve of Battle!", this ten-cent issue captures the tense, sweat-soaked urgency that made Atlas war comics a staple of mid-1950s newsstands.