Gang Busters #65

Trapped on a wooden raft in a murky swamp, a suited gangster and two officers grip poles as an enormous alligator surges up from the water below — and closing in fast is a red motorboat full of armed pursuers, making escape in either direction look grim. The cover speech balloon says it all: jump into the water and face the gators, or stand their ground against the hydroplane crew bearing down on them. This September 1958 DC crime thriller, featuring the story "Swamp Dragnet," delivers the kind of tight, pulse-raising predicament that made Gang Busters a staple of mid-century law-and-order comics, with cover pencils by Curt Swan and inks by Stan Kaye giving the swamp atmosphere a wonderfully moody edge.