Kull and the Barbarians #3

Three of Robert E. Howard's mightiest creations share a single cover for this September 1975 Curtis/Marvel magazine — Kull at the center, sword raised and muscles tensed, flanked by a fierce Red Sonja and the dark-cloaked Solomon Kane as they surge forward through fire and crumbling ruins, dark clawed creatures snarling at their feet. Michael Whelan's painted cover has a brooding, oil-painting richness that perfectly suits the promise of "savage adventures from a world beyond time." With Roy Thomas adapting Howard's source material and Alan Weiss handling interior art, Kull and the Barbarians #3 delivers the kind of sword-and-sorcery anthology that made this short-lived magazine format genuinely memorable.