Combat #40

Dell's Combat brings the Pacific theater to vivid, gritty life with this 1973 issue centered on the Battle of Tarawa. George Wilson's cover painting plunges you right into the thick of it — two helmeted Marines crouch low amid barbed wire and smoke, weapons blazing as an explosion flares behind them, capturing the desperate intensity of a beachhead assault. With Paul S. Newman writing and Sam Glanzman handling both art and inks inside, this is a war comic that takes its subject seriously.