Astonishing #3

This April 1951 issue of Astonishing plunges Marvel Boy into a genuinely eerie confrontation, with Bill Everett's cover depicting the red-and-gold-costumed hero straining against an unseen force while a sinister cloaked figure taunts him with a "spell of terror," a struggling blonde woman nearby, and flaming skull-topped pillars and a crouching demon lurking in the background. The cover promises Marvel Boy's strangest challenge yet — a villain called Mr. Death — along with a second Marvel Boy adventure in "The Runaway Planet" and additional tales of weird terror. For fans of early Atlas-era science fiction and horror anthologies, this is a wonderfully atmospheric slice of 1951 comics at their most imaginative.