Nyoka the Jungle Girl #16

Charlton's Nyoka the Jungle Girl #16 puts the fearless blonde heroine right in the thick of it — cover artist Bert Whitman depicts Nyoka in her leopard-print outfit, gripping a pole overhead as she squares off against a menacing, horned-headdress-wearing warrior amid churning rapids and crashing water. The raw energy of the scene, with a third figure tumbling through the chaos below, perfectly captures the "New Action Packed Adventures" promise splashed across the top of the cover. With interior work by writer Rod Reed and artist Bernie Krigstein on "The Vultures of Kahari, Part I: Death Mountain!", this 1948 ten-cent issue delivers the kind of wild, globe-trotting jungle adventure that made Nyoka a standout heroine of her era.