Boy Commandos #29

This 1948 DC issue puts Rip Carter and his young trouble-shooters in a tight spot — the cover by penciler Curt Swan and inker Steve Brodie depicts the group cornered against a brick wall, guns leveled at them by a line of menacing gangland enforcers while a sinister figure at the far right raises a pistol. The tag line promises the team faces the "Storm Troops of Gangland," and the cover delivers that threat with cool, understated tension. At ten cents for 52 pages, Boy Commandos #29 offers a solid dose of postwar crime-adventure storytelling.