Six-Gun Heroes #20
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSix-Gun Heroes #20 (Fawcett, May 1953) belongs to one of the Golden Age's most culturally representative anthology titles, packaging multiple B-Western film stars into a single 32-page package at the height of the postwar cowboy-comic boom. The issue arrived during Fawcett's final months of publication before the entire comics wing shut down in 1953, making late-run Fawcett issues like this one witnesses to the end of one publishing era and the handoff to Charlton Comics, which continued the title's numbering from issue #24 onward. As an Australian Cleland reprint, the copy also documents how American cowboy-comic content radiated outward to international markets — Australian publishers including Cleland routinely reprinted Fawcett and other American Western titles for local readerships during the 1950s. The issue thus carries dual historical weight: it represents the twilight of Fawcett's Golden Age output and the global appetite for Hollywood-cowboy mythology in comics form.
A marshal investigates a mysterious disappearance at an undertaker's parlor, where a suspicious book hidden under a blanket may hold clues. The investigation leads to a prison break involving a convict in striped clothing and a guard, with the escapee discovered hiding in a barn. The story culminates when Monte Hale reunites a family—Bob Kinsey's wife and children—after learning they had been searching for him, and the family reconciles after Kinsey promises to reform and abandon his prejudices.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Fawcett Publications launched Six-Gun Heroes in 1950 as a showcase anthology built around licensed likenesses of real-life B-Western film stars — at various points the roster included Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue, Monte Hale, Tex Ritter, Allan 'Rocky' Lane, Smiley Burnette, and Tom Mix. The series ran 23 issues under Fawcett before the publisher shuttered its comics division in 1953, at which point Charlton Comics acquired the title and continued its numbering intact from issue #24. Australian publisher Cleland was among the reprint houses that licensed and redistributed American Western comics content to Australian readers during the 1950s and 1960s, making the Cleland edition of issue #20 a secondary-market artifact produced for that readership rather than a distinct editorial creation.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Six-Gun Heroes #20 was originally published by Fawcett Publications with a cover date of May 1953, placing it among the title's final dozen Fawcett issues before the publisher closed its comics division.
- The Cleland designation identifies this copy as an Australian reprint edition; Cleland was one of several Australian publishers — alongside Ayers & James, Federal Publishing, Gredown, and Horwitz — that reprinted American Western comics for local audiences in the 1950s and 1960s.
- The issue is a 32-page, full-color anthology priced at ten cents in its original American edition, featuring multiple self-contained stories starring different cowboy-film heroes.
- Confirmed recurring stars of the Fawcett run at this period include Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue, Allan 'Rocky' Lane (billed as 'Secret Marshal'), Monte Hale, Tex Ritter, and Smiley Burnette, reflecting the full studio-era B-Western roster.
- Doug Wildey — later famous as the creator of Hanna-Barbera's 1964 Jonny Quest animated series — contributed art to Six-Gun Heroes during this same 1953 publication window, making his work in adjacent issues (such as #21, July 1953) among his earliest documented comic art.
- The Fawcett series ran exactly 23 issues (1950–1953); Charlton Comics then picked up the numbering at #24 (January 1954) and continued publishing the title through 1965 for a combined run of 83 issues across both publishers.
- Hopalong Cassidy's inclusion in the Fawcett issues carried a specific licensing complication: when Charlton printed issue #24 using an already-prepared Fawcett editorial package, it unknowingly featured Cassidy even though DC Comics had by then acquired those rights — illustrating the tangled rights landscape surrounding these licensed-cowboy properties.
- No first appearances of original characters have been identified in Six-Gun Heroes #20 specifically; the title's format was a licensed-star anthology, not an originals-creation vehicle.
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