Howard the Duck #25

Howard the Duck tumbles helplessly through a dizzying spiral vortex on this 1978 cover by Gene Colan and Klaus Janson, while the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime — including a snake-charmer and a purple-costumed strongman — loom below with menacing confidence. The cover copy puts it plainly: the Feathered Fury is tossing his hat into the Ringmaster's Circus of Crime, and that swirling red background makes the whole scene feel genuinely unnerving in the best possible way. Steve Gerber's "Getting Smooth!" promises the kind of offbeat, sharp-edged Marvel storytelling that made Howard one of the more wonderfully strange corners of the 1970s comics landscape.