Black Diamond Western #52

Published by Lev Gleason in 1954, this issue of Black Diamond Western opens with a cover by Bill Walton that puts the masked, red-shirted hero square in the middle of a close-quarters gunfight on a wooden boardwalk — his pistol blazing smoke as two rough-looking opponents close in around him. The dynamic staging, with one thug staggering back from the shot and another crouching with a drawn revolver, captures the gritty tension that made frontier action comics so compelling in the mid-1950s. With "Six Gun Showdown" on the docket, this issue delivers exactly the no-nonsense Western thrills the title promises.