Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #23

Issue #23 of Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth delivers one of the most viscerally gripping covers of 1974, with Jack Kirby and inker D. Bruce Berry depicting a massive, gape-jawed shark looming over a helpless Kamandi as he clings to a makeshift raft in churning, mountainous seas. The shark's blood-red maw and furious speech bubble — "Die, bungling gnat!! You cost me a victory!" — immediately signal that this is no ordinary ocean predator, but a thinking, vengeful creature in the wild post-apocalyptic world Kirby built. The cover's tagline, "Men have killed for fish before… but these men were trained by them!", sets up a deliciously strange civilization where the food chain has flipped entirely.