Doctor Strange #26

Jim Starlin's cover for this December 1977 issue captures the Master of the Mystic Arts in full sorcerous command — hands raised and crackling with power, his blue-and-gold robes swirling against a charged grey void. Surrounding Strange is a remarkable assembly of faces and forces: the long-bearded Ancient One looming below, a stern bald figure and a silver-haired woman to the right, a green-clad skeletal figure amid eerie yellow bursts, and a smoldering mystical eye watching from the left. The cover's promise of "Mystic Mayhem in a Universe Gone Mad!" makes this a vivid snapshot of late-'70s Marvel at its most gloriously strange.