Lawbreakers Suspense Stories #12

Lou Morales delivers a genuinely unsettling cover for this 1953 Capitol/Charlton anthology: a smugly grinning man in glasses holds a small gun while opening a door to reveal a grotesquely disfigured blonde woman — her face ravaged, her clothes in tatters — as a second woman looks on from a staircase in the background. The speech bubble ("All right… you can come out now, Beryl. I hope those hungry insects didn't scare you too much!") makes the scene even more chilling, hinting at the calculated cruelty lurking inside Lawbreakers Suspense Stories #12. If you enjoy early-'50s crime and horror anthology comics with genuine menace on the cover, this one earns its place on the shelf.