Green Lantern #39

Few covers from 1965 capture the sheer absurdity of superhero comics quite as delightfully as this one — Green Lantern, billed here as "The Green Gladiator," squares off inside a boxing ring against the brutish, leopard-print-clad Brutus Force, with Hal's own power-ring construct glove being knocked back at him mid-fight. Gil Kane's pencils and Murphy Anderson's inks give the scene a kinetic, almost laugh-out-loud energy, with a ringside crowd watching the bout billed as nothing less than "The Fight for the Championship of the Universe." Writer John Broome was never shy about big cosmic stakes, and this cover delivers that Silver Age charm in spades.