Adventure Comics #488

A shadowy villain's massive hands clutch photographs of costumed heroes — including a flying figure, a warrior woman, an acrobatic female hero, and a team group shot — pinned to a darkroom line like damning evidence, with a chilling caption declaring intent to destroy them all now that their true identities are known. The cover by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano captures everything that makes Dial "H" for Hero such a distinctive concept: an ever-rotating cast of reader-created heroes whose secret identities are suddenly their greatest vulnerability. December 1981's Adventure Comics #488 sets up a genuinely tense premise, and the "Comic You Create!" tagline reminds fans that those heroes in the photographs were born from readers' own imaginations.