Doctor Strange #16

Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, faces one of his most harrowing challenges in this 1976 Marvel thriller — the cover by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer plunges the Sorcerer Supreme into a nightmarish tableau, coiled in the grip of a monstrous serpent while a leering red demon looms overhead and a white-haired captive woman strains against her chains nearby. The cover copy says it all: Strange must voyage to the Land Beyond the Living to save the woman he loves, leaving him "trapped between the Devil and the Dead." With Colan and Palmer's dynamic linework bringing every fang and mystical flourish to vivid life, this is mid-seventies Marvel supernatural storytelling at its most atmospheric.