EC ARCHIVES TWO-FISTED TALES Volume 4

As these final issues were produced, editor Harvey Kurtzman turned over the editorial reins to artist John Severin. Stories moved away from WWII and the Korean war and turned to adventure, including western frontier tales starring Indians and gunslingers. Severin took over doing cover art and drew many of the stories, frequently along with superb work by Jack Davis. But also here is a wonderful biography of big game hunter Carl Akeley by Wally Wood. Yet another facet of EC's fine innovation. Typical stories were "Sharpshooter" by John Severin, and "Last of the Mohicans" by Jack Davis. Evans comes on board with another great early air-war story, "Flying Coffins." More wonderful EC work that was far removed from the horror, crime and sci-fi found in their other titles. I've always found these issues a lot of fun. There's also a continuing series on Ruby Ed Coffey, a two-fisted spy/adventurer, a beautifully rendered adventure/action series by John Severin. He even headed to a lost Inca City and treasure in "Uranium Valley." Great work! Before Two-Fisted Tales burst onto the scene in 1950, war comics were largely unsophisticated, focusing only on action and adventure -- wartime propaganda, essentially. But under the editorial direction of Harvey Kurtzman, who also penned the majority of the early stories, Two-Fisted dared to examine all the horror and madness to be found on the battlefield.