Fear #12

From the Florida swamplands comes one of Marvel's most unsettling creatures, and this February 1973 issue of Adventure Into Fear puts Man-Thing front and center in a genuinely gripping cover scene. Jim Starlin's pencils (inked by Herb Trimpe) show the muck-encrusted behemoth locked in a fierce struggle with a massive coiled serpent, while a shirtless man is caught in the chaos below and an armed lawman looks on from the edge of the swamp, shouting threats at them both. Steve Gerber's story, "No Choice of Colors!," promises the kind of morally charged, atmospheric horror that made Man-Thing one of the most compelling corners of the early Bronze Age Marvel universe.