Kid Colt Outlaw #161

From the frontier storytelling tradition that Marvel kept alive well into the 1970s, Kid Colt Outlaw #161 arrives with a cover by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott that crackles with desperate action — Kid Colt in his red shirt leaps into the fray, lasso flying, while U.S. cavalry troopers scramble behind makeshift cover of barrels and fallen comrades, guns blazing. The cover caption — "Keep blasting, pony soldiers! I'll handle the gunnies behind us!" — neatly frames the outlaw as an unlikely ally to the blue-coats, with horses and riders charging through the dusty background. Subtitled "Troopers for Texas!" on the cover and featuring interior work by writer Joe Gill and artist Jack Keller, this twenty-cent issue delivers the kind of fast-moving Western camaraderie that made the title a reliable favorite.