Black Cat Comics #42

From Harvey Comics' era of "Strangest Tales of Fear and Superstition," this 1953 issue of Black Cat Mystery delivers a cover that earns its ten-cent price tag many times over — a snarling, chain-bound beast rears up against a wall of flame while a panicked crowd scrambles in every direction around it, ropes and chains doing little to contain the creature's fury. The story promised inside, "Kiss of Doom!," hints at the deliciously dark turns Harvey's anthology horror was known for at the time. It's a vivid snapshot of early-'50s horror comics at their most viscerally entertaining.