Outlaws #2

Battling Parson Brown stands firm in his faith—but when a crooked scheme to frame an innocent man threatens the town of Rock City, the reverend discovers that sometimes justice requires a fist as quick as a prayer. Jack Roper's blackmail of young Bess Carter over a murder her father didn't commit sets the stage for a showdown at Roper's cabin, where Parson Brown must decide how far his convictions will bend to protect the innocent and stop a killer.

In 1880 Tombstone, a mysterious stranger named Wyatt Earpp arrives to find a town gripped by lawlessness—robbery, murder, and a sheriff content to look the other way while criminals like Old Man Clanton run wild. When the stage is attacked and Shorty Jenkins is killed, Earpp refuses to let the trail go cold and pursues justice despite the corrupt court's interference. A final confrontation in the town corral will determine whether Earpp can restore order to this lawless frontier.

A city fellow with a doctor's orders to ride horses for his health heads west loaded with all the gear a sporting goods clerk can dream up—only to discover that real frontier horses are considerably less forgiving than the electric variety back home. This two-page romp plays every fish-out-of-water beat you'd expect from a 1948 humor western, with a punchline that ties the whole mishap together nicely.

Doctor Peter Dawson faces an impossible choice when Moss Cahill and his sons kidnap him at gunpoint—forcing the frontier physician to treat one of the outlaws' own while his best friend Billy Shaw lies dying from a bullet wound back in town. Doc must use his wits and medical knowledge to outmaneuver his captors and find a way back to his patient before it's too late.

Sloan Sayers returns to Arizona after the Civil War with a pacifist's conviction—he builds a schoolhouse to teach children education over gunplay, rejecting violence entirely. When a ruthless gambler and killer named Carl Gould robs the bank and takes refuge in the schoolhouse, threatening the young students, Sloan discovers that protecting the innocent sometimes demands the very thing he swore off. A test of principle unfolds as Sayers must decide whether his ideals can survive when the lives of children hang in the balance.

In the rough-and-tumble days of Dodge City, "Gentleman Ben" Thompson earns his reputation as one of the most dangerous outlaws in the badlands—a man quick with his wits and quicker with his gun. When Ben and his friend Jim Dobson crash a cattlemen's banquet uninvited, sparks fly, leading to a chain of bold confrontations that test just how far a man can push his luck before the whole town turns against him. This five-page tale captures the rise and fall of a gunslinger who lives by his own rules in the Old West.

Doc Bates and his assistant hawk a dubious "miracle tonic" to gullible frontier townsfolk, hawking it as a cure-all made from a secret Indian formula—though it's really just creek water. When the last bottle lands in the hands of Cactus Annie, a lonely woman desperate to win over a man, the con spirals into chaos as the townspeople discover the deception and Doc Bates finds himself in a tight spot. With an angry mob closing in, Doc and his partner scramble to escape before the townsfolk make good on their threats.