Dark Horse Presents #23

Dark Horse Presents #23 sets a tense, historically charged tone right on the cover, where William Stout places two hard-bitten figures in wide-brimmed hats at the center of a tightly framed standoff — one leveling a shotgun directly at the reader while the other hovers nervously in the background, pistol raised, against a backdrop of dense jungle foliage. The chilling caption strip — "Before Afghanistan… Before Auschwitz… There Was — The Philippines!" — signals that the anthology's "Filipino Massacre" story, written, drawn, inked, and lettered entirely by Stout, tackles some of history's darkest chapters with unflinching purpose. Rounding out this 1988 anthology are "Race of Scorpions" and "Gateway to Hell!," making this an issue that clearly has a lot on its mind.