Star Spangled Comics #35

From the wartime pages of DC's August 1944 lineup comes Star Spangled Comics #35, featuring the Guardian and the Newsboy Legionnaires in a story titled "Short Weight Blues!" The cover — penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Fred Ray — puts the blue-and-gold Guardian looming protectively in a doorway while a cluster of alarmed young Legionnaires huddle around a bedridden redheaded boy, as a menacing gunman lurks in the background. The cover tag promises trouble when those kids become "The Proud Poppas," setting up exactly the kind of scrappy, street-level adventure this series delivered so reliably in 1944.