Tomahawk #22

DC's frontier hero charges into action on this February 1954 cover, with Tomahawk firing his rifle mid-stride as a log cabin blazes behind him and a chaotic skirmish erupts in the background. A sinister figure in the foreground coolly watches the mayhem unfold, his speech bubble making the moral stakes bracingly clear: a man named Sam Dalton refused to pay up, so he won't be getting any help. Cover pencils by Curt Swan and inks by Ray Burnley give the scene a vivid, kinetic energy that perfectly suits the featured story, "Frontier Protection Racket!