Larry Lieber, Steve Skeates – Writer
Doug Wildey, Jack Abel – Artist
Allen Milgrom – Inker
Alan Kupperberg – Letters

Published by Atlas Comics over forty years previous, the first issue of Western Action would go on to be its only outing and feature two stories for those readers who would choose to pick the book up. The first by Larry Lieber and Doug Wildey finds a young family moving out to the Wyoming wilderness to take up their uncle’s farm. Unbeknownst to them, though they are made aware of it quite soon, a neighbouring rancher wants the farm so that his cattle might partake of the water that resides there. While no force is met on the day they learn of this, violence soon finds them while the son is away and when he comes back to find his parents killed and the house destroyed, he aims to make vengeance his life’s priority and takes up gunfighting with the help of the man named Corbett. Lieber is no stranger to the Western genre and the man does an excellent job with the story and while it is not wholly original, having been played out on the big screen and most likely on the page beforehand, it is written well and the reader is absorbed into it for the short time that it endures. Helping it along is the artwork by Wildey and the man definitely knows how to make a tale exciting, which he does when things pick up during the final act and ‘Kid Cody’ delivers a little frontier justice. A second story called Vengeance Trail and starring the Commanche Kid sees a young boy in need of help as his grandpa was just killed. The Commanche Kid agrees to take the boy to his aunt, the dying wish of the old man, yet accomplishing said goal will be harder than first imagined. Writer Steve Skeates then goes into the origin of the Commanche Kid, for readers are probably wondering why a white man is dressed like a Native American and answers are soon provided before it all finally goes back to the present and the trail he now finds himself on. Skeates then throws the killers back into the mix and there is a showdown between them and the Kid and even though the Kid takes a bullet, he, of course, is the last man standing. Like the first tale in the book, this was quite a lot of fun as well with Jack Abel providing the artwork. It would have been nice to see this title move forward with a second, if not a tenth or twentieth issue but such as it is, it does stand fine on its own even though the characters present showed promise. One might wonder what the future would hold for them and that, no one will ever know but at least one is able to enjoy these adventures and that will have to suffice.