Boys’ Ranch

    (Harvey, 1950-1951, 1991)
™ and © Harvey Comic Publications

The series didn’t last for long, but it marks the pinnacle of Jack Kirby’s work on Western comics. With the artistic help of Mort Meskin, the kid-gang team of Dandy (“who finds a fight just as exciting as a pretty gal”), comic-relief Wabash, and the captivating Angel (“there’s no halo over Angel—for two very good reasons—and they’re both strapped to his hips!”) under the care of scout Clay Duncan came to life. It combined the best traits of the Joe Simon-and-Jack Kirby kid-teams and produced at least one outright masterpiece in its less than a year of production: the story of Mother Delilah (in #3). When Marvel Comics produced a series of other hardcover reprints in 1991, the company reprinted the entirety of the Harvey series in one volume, just because it deserved preservation.

— Maggie Thompson
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