Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #15

Issue #15 of Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth arrives in March 1974 with a cover that pulls no punches: Kamandi and a companion are bound and suspended helplessly while a snarling mob of armed apes surrounds them, one barking the chilling verdict — "Clemency denied! Execute the prisoners!" — as a blonde figure in the foreground reaches out in desperate appeal. Jack Kirby's pencils and Mike Royer's inks frame the scene with a vertiginous, almost dizzying energy, and the cover's teaser — apes in control of Washington, D.C., sitting on the Watergate secrets — gives this wild post-apocalyptic adventure a sharp satirical edge perfectly suited to 1974.