Ghost Rider #5

From the streets of Las Vegas to the cover of this April 1974 Marvel Comics gem, Ghost Rider tears through the scene atop his flaming motorcycle, his skull ablaze as he lunges toward a cloaked, skeletal figure — identified by the cover copy as Roulette, "the Man Who Gambles with Death." A terrified blonde woman scrambles out of the path of destruction in the lower left, while a bystander recoils in the background, and the cover's bold tagline — "Is He Alive — or Dead?" — adds a genuinely eerie charge to the whole confrontation. With Gil Kane's dynamic pencils and John Romita's inks bringing every flame-licked detail to life, this is early Ghost Rider at his most visually arresting.