U.S. Air Force Comics #21

This May 1962 Charlton issue puts readers right in the middle of a high-stakes jet engagement, with the cover by Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia depicting an American F-86 banking sharply against a Soviet MiG bearing red stars, explosions bursting dramatically between them as a distress call — "Mayday! Mayday!" — fills the air. Three stories are teased across the cover: the featured jet-age aerial thriller "Yellowbird," a WWII tale titled "Pride of the Japs," and a survival yarn called "Getting Home the Hard Way." With writing by Joe Gill and interior art by Jack Keller and Dick Giordano, this issue delivers a solid mix of Cold War tension and wartime adventure that fans of military comics were coming to expect from Charlton in 1962.