Doc Savage #8

Marvel's oversized 1977 magazine format gives Ken Barr's painted cover room to breathe — and what a cover it is: a massively muscled Doc Savage, shirt torn away, strains against the crushing coils of a monstrous creature with burning red eyes, water cascading around them in a primal struggle. The tagline "It feeds on men's minds — its next victim… the Man of Bronze!" sets up the tension of "The Crimson Plague" perfectly, promising a threat as nightmarish as the beast looming over Doc on that darkly atmospheric cover. With Doug Moench, John Warner, and Jim Whitmore on writing duties and Ernie Chan handling interior art, this issue delivers pulp adventure at its most visceral.