Doctor Strange #176

Few covers from 1969 set a mood quite like this one: Doctor Strange, red-caped and visibly strained, channels his mystical energy against a blue-clad, white-haired female adversary in a fog-shrouded graveyard — and the gravestone behind her reads "Stephen Strange… Died October 1968," a chilling detail that raises immediate questions about the Sorcerer Supreme's fate. The eerie atmosphere, from the gnarled dead tree to the swirling supernatural energies crackling between the two figures, is a testament to Gene Colan's pencils and Tom Palmer's inks working in perfect harmony. With Roy Thomas scripting, this is late-Silver Age Marvel at its moody, supernatural best.