Action Comics #506

Action Comics #506 (April 1980) poses a genuinely unsettling premise right on its cover: "It would be fun to fly — but what if you could never come down?" The cover, penciled by Ross Andru and inked by Dick Giordano, captures Superman locked in a mid-air struggle with a snarling, bear-like creature while scores of children and bystanders drift helplessly skyward around a fairground — a Ferris wheel and roller coaster visible below — as Superman's caption box warns that the creature is preventing him from saving them. Cary Bates's story, brought to life inside by Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte, promises exactly the kind of high-stakes, imaginative Superman adventure that made 1980 DC a pleasure to read.