Blackhawk #40

A vivid collision of eras erupts across this 1951 Quality Comics cover by Reed Crandall, where a female knight in full armor charges on horseback, sword raised high, bearing down on a Blackhawk squadron member and the rotund comic-relief figure Chop-Chop scrambling to escape. The cover teaser — "Knights in armor pitted against the Blackhawks!" — sets up the "Valley of Yesterday!" story with genuine wit, and Crandall's draftsmanship brings both the charging warhorse and the desperate airmen to vivid, kinetic life. With 52 big full-width pages for just a dime, this is a fine slice of early-'50s adventure comics at their most imaginative.