Robert Bernstein Writes Desperado

This is a way of dipping my toe in the water on Robert Bernstein's scripts for Lev Gleason; he was a major writer for them mostly after Dick Wood (their tenures overlapped in 1946-47) and alongside Carl Wessler and others. There may well be more Bernstein stories here that didn't jump out at me if he didn't use his typical exclamations.

Desperado not surprisingly is spun off Crime Does Not Pay as an anthology of nothing but Wild West crime stories after CDNP ran them every so often. With #9 Desperado became the Western masked hero book Black Diamond Western.

In lieu of CDNP's Mr. Crime, the lead story of most issues of Desperado was narrated by an object--a gallows, a coin, a boot--long before that became a staple of the DC war books. Here a gun is narrating "Joe Slade" in #1.

Desperado Anthology Stories
Written by Robert Bernstein

June/48	1	Joe Slade
		Sam Bass, the Cross Eyed Dead Shot
Aug/	2	Teton Jackson
Sep/	3	The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and Its Leader "Kid" Curry
		Crazy Sam Brown
		Johnny Ringo
Oct/	4	"Doc" Holliday
		Wes Hardin
Nov/	5	King Hunter, the Self-Proclaimed King
		Clay Cottrell
		"Rattlesnake Jake" Fallon
		Bat Slater
Dec/	6	Joe Bowler
		Sheriff Ted Tucker
		Burly Will Grady and His Band of Ruthless Rustlers
Jan/49	7	One Man Against Two Armies
		"Buckskin" Frank Combs
		[WESTERN WHODUNNIT?]
Feb/	8	Cesar Leporello and the Phony Diamond of the Rio Grande
		Fools' Gold
		Blind Man's Bluff