Robin Hood Tales #5

History

Quality Comics launched Robin Hood Tales with a February 1956 cover date, producing six issues before National Periodical Publications (DC) acquired the title and continued it seamlessly from issue #7 onward, keeping the bi-monthly schedule unbroken. Issue #5, cover-dated October 1956, was produced under Quality's editorial umbrella — the same team that had shaped the series from the start, with interior art credits to the studio pool that Quality regularly employed; writer and precise interior artist credits for this specific issue remain disputed in the scholarly record. The Quality run drew its storytelling inspiration from the traditional Robin Hood ballads and the popularizing influence of the contemporary Richard Greene television series, a cultural backdrop that at least seven American publishers were simultaneously responding to.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published by Quality Comics with a cover date of October 1956; it is the penultimate Quality-published issue before DC took over with issue #7 (cover-dated February 1957).
• The issue features a Dick Dillin cover, marking a distinct artistic hand on the exterior presentation of this late Quality entry.
• Lead story is 'Menace of the Royal Assassins,' in which Robin rescues King Henry and is granted a full pardon — an adaptation that combines the traditional ballads 'Robin Hood and Queen Catherine' and its sequel 'Robin Hood's Chase,' transposing the royal figures to Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine following Howard Pyle's influential children's novel.
• Additional stories in the issue include 'The Baron's Tyranny,' 'The Capture of Robin Hood,' and 'The Miser's Secret,' continuing the Quality anthology format of multiple short adventure tales per issue.
• The issue's stories reflect the Comics Code constraints in force since 1954: Robin's outlaw activities are framed around loyalty to the crown and opposition to corrupt authority rather than generalized theft, navigating the Code's prohibition against presenting crime sympathetically.
• Quality's Robin Hood series as a whole — including this issue — depicted the character as Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, a loyal supporter of King Richard whose lands were seized by Prince John, a characterization shared with the concurrent Richard Greene TV series.
• The entire Quality run of Robin Hood Tales (issues #1–6) was later collected and reprinted by Gwandanaland Comics as a complete series volume, making the full run including #5 accessible to modern readers.
• Attribution of interior art for the Quality issues, long assigned to Matt Baker in dealer listings and early collector references, has been disputed by comics historian Martin O'Hearn, who identified other artists as more likely responsible; the Pencil Ink checklist flags Baker's credits on issues #2–6 as non-attributed or mis-attributed.