Straight Arrow #38

Cover artist Fred Meagher puts the tension front and center in this 1954 Magazine Enterprises issue, depicting Straight Arrow wrestling a snarling, rearing bear with his bare hands while a woman clutching an infant scrambles to safety below him — all with his painted horse rearing in the background. The raw urgency of that three-way composition, hero versus beast with innocents at stake, makes this a genuinely gripping piece of western adventure art. Inside, the story "The Mystery of the Missing Herd" promises more of the action that made this ME series a steady ten-cent thrill throughout the early fifties.