Black Diamond Western #15

Charles Biro's cover for this September 1949 issue puts the masked hero Black Diamond front and center in a tense standoff — a gun-wielding villain threatens to shoot the rearing horse Reliapon unless Black Diamond commands the animal to submit, while a captive man stands bound to a tree nearby and a second henchman watches warily from the background. The cover copy teases a story called "The Bogus Black Diamond," raising the stakes with the grim choice of betraying a best friend or enabling a killer's schemes. At a dime for a full 52 pages of illustrated stories, this Lev Gleason publication delivers a hefty helping of frontier drama.