Johnny Mack Brown #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeJohnny Mack Brown #2 (Dell, 1950) is a representative artifact of the Golden Age western comics boom, when Hollywood B-movie cowboy stars were routinely translated into four-color adventures for the Saturday matinee crowd. It marks the true launch of Brown's standalone Dell title — Dell retroactively designated Four Color #269 as 'issue #1,' making this the first issue published under the dedicated numbering — and it demonstrates Dell's then-pioneering use of real photographic covers to tie comic books directly to living screen personalities. As part of a series that ran through 1952 and then continued in Dell's Four Color line all the way to 1959, this issue helped establish the durable template of the celebrity western tie-in that would define much of Dell's output throughout the early television era.
Johnny Mack Brown faces "Tenderfoot Trouble" when a cowardly cowboy named Tom Brady is accused of causing trouble in town. Lawyer Hobbs and criminals Grimes and his men plot to kill Johnny Mack Brown and steal a ranch, but Johnny discovers their scheme. After a confrontation at the Flying-V ranch involving a woman named Terry and the villains, Johnny pursues the fleeing criminals, ultimately trapping Brod Maddox and his men when their car plunges over a cliff, forcing them to surrender.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The standalone Johnny Mack Brown series grew out of Dell's Four Color anthology, where Brown had already appeared in issue #269; Dell counted that Four Color appearance as issue #1, so the dedicated title launched with #2 in late 1950. The series was produced under the Dell/Western Publishing arrangement, with Western Printing & Lithography handling production — the same pipeline responsible for most of Dell's licensed western titles of the period. Interior stories and art on the early issues were handled by Jesse Marsh, Elizabeth Beecher, and Gaylord Du Bois, a trio who were workhorses of Dell's western and adventure line at the time. The glossy photo cover — a standard feature across all issues — reproduced a still of Brown himself, reinforcing the book's identity as a genuine Hollywood tie-in rather than a purely fictional creation.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by Dell in 1950 as part of a dedicated ongoing series that ran nine issues (#2–#10) from October–December 1950 through September–November 1952.
- Dell retroactively designated Four Color (1942 series) #269 as issue #1 of the Johnny Mack Brown series, making #2 the first issue published under the dedicated title banner.
- The issue features a real photograph of Johnny Mack Brown on both the front and back covers — a signature Dell practice for its celebrity western tie-in comics of this era.
- Interior stories and art credited to Jesse Marsh, Elizabeth Beecher, and Gaylord Du Bois — key creative contributors to Dell's western line.
- The lead story, 'Tenderfoot Trouble,' centers on Brown helping a young Easterner reclaim a ranch he has been swindled out of; additional stories in the issue include 'Handwriting on the Wall,' 'Fleetwing Comes Through,' and 'The Contest.'
- The issue runs 48 pages in full color with a saddle-stitched binding and a glossy cover over newsprint interiors — standard production specs for Dell's early-1950s western titles.
- Johnny Mack Brown himself (born September 1, 1904) was a former college football star who became one of Universal Pictures' top B-movie cowboys in the 1930s–50s, starring in over 160 films; the comic series ran concurrently with his active film career.
- The Brown character and his horse Rebel also appeared across 21 issues of Dell's giant-format Western Roundup anthology (1952–), and the Four Color line continued to publish Brown adventures through issue #963 in 1959, demonstrating the franchise's longevity across Dell's publishing ecosystem.
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↩ Reprints Johnny Mack Brown #5 (1951)
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