Fantastic Four Annual #9

This King-Size Special from 1971 packs a full 64 pages of Fantastic Four action, with a cover by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta that sets an urgent, dramatic tone — the Thing lies sprawled across a debris-strewn floor amid scattered machinery and equipment, while the Human Torch blazes nearby and Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman scramble behind him, the bold title "Lo! There Shall Be An Ending!" promising something momentous within. The sheer sense of exhaustion and chaos on that cover — the FF looking genuinely beaten and surrounded by wreckage — makes this one of the more gripping annual presentations of Marvel's first family. With Stan Lee writing and Jack Kirby drawing, it's a solid slice of early-'70s Marvel at its most ambitious.