Black Cat Comics #36

Harvey Comics was firing on all cylinders with this 1952 entry in their "Strangest Tales of Fear and Superstition" anthology, and the cover by Warren Kremer makes a vivid case for it. A hulking, bat-wielding monster clutches a terrified child while electrical energy crackles around it, as a desperate scientist at his "life machine" shouts that he must regain control — all while a second creature lurks in the foreground amid crumbling earth and broken brick. The cover's lurid promise of monsters emerging "savage and snarling from the bowels of the grave" sets the perfect mood for Vic Donahue's "Battle of the Monsters" inside.