Dalton Gang in the context of Grat Dalton

Lucky Luke is a Western comic album series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris in 1946. Morris wrote and drew the series single-handedly until 1955, after which he started collaborating with French writer René Goscinny. Their partnership lasted until Goscinny's death in 1977. Afterwards, Morris collaborated with several other writers until his own death in 2001. Since Morris's death, French artist Achdé has drawn the series, scripted by several successive writers.

The series takes place in the American Old West of the United States. It stars the titular Lucky Luke, a street-smart gunslinger known as the "man who shoots faster than his shadow", and his intelligent horse Jolly Jumper. Lucky Luke is pitted against various villains, either fictional or inspired by American history or folklore. The most famous of these are the Dalton Brothers, loosely based on the Dalton Gang of the early 1890s and claimed to be their cousins. The stories are filled with humorous elements parodying the Western genre.

Maurice De Bevere (Dutch: [moːˈriz də ˈbeːvərə]; French: [mɔʁis də bəvɛʁ, moʁ-]; 1 December 1923 – 16 July 2001), better known as Morris, was a Belgian comics artist, illustrator and the creator of Lucky Luke, a bestselling comic series about a gunslinger in the American Wild West. He was inspired by the adventures of the historic Dalton Gang and other outlaws. It was a bestselling series for more than 50 years that was translated into 23 languages and published internationally. He collaborated for two decades with French writer René Goscinny on the series. Morris's pen name is an Anglicized version of his first name.

Joe, William, Jack and Averell Dalton, known together as The Daltons or the Dalton brothers, are fictional characters in the Lucky Luke Western comics series. Four brothers and outlaws acting as the most recurring enemies to protagonist Lucky Luke, they were created by artist Morris and writer René Goscinny. Loosely inspired by the real-life Dalton Gang active in the United States in early 1890s (who themselves appeared in the 1954 Lucky Luke story "Outlaws"), The Daltons first had a one-panel cameo appearance in the 1958 comic Lucky Luke versus Joss Jamon, before being prominently featured later that year in the comic The Dalton Cousins (named as such because the four are billed as the cousins of their real-life counterparts within the Lucky Luke universe).

While Morris depicted the real-life Dalton brothers as evil and successful, the fictional Daltons are dysfunctional, messy and less skillful. They are strictly identical except for height: Joe, the oldest and shortest brother, is the smartest and most cunning, while Averell, the youngest and tallest, is dumb and wholly incompetent; William and Jack, the middle brothers, have relatively colorless personalities and less dialogue than their other siblings. Their storylines often begin with the gang escaping from prison, followed by prison dog Rantanplan, and later Lucky Luke, as they try to carry out whatever plans Joe, or their mother Ma Dalton, has in mind; they are traditionally captured or back in jail by the end of the story.