Jack of Fables #24

The tagline says it all — "The West Wouldn't Have Been Wild Without..." Jack — and this 2008 Vertigo issue throws him headlong into an old-fashioned frontier brawl. Brian Bolland's cover captures a long-haired, hat-wearing brawler delivering a punishing beat-down on a bloodied opponent right in the middle of a dusty main street, with a crowd of onlookers — sheriff's star visible among them — watching near a Wells Fargo storefront, while silhouetted riders on horseback frame the scene above. With Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges at the writing helm and Tony Akins and José Marzan, Jr. on interior art, "1883 Chapter Three: The Showdown" promises the kind of rough-and-tumble mythic West that only a Fable like Jack could stumble into.