Marvel's Space-Born Superhero! Captain Marvel #3

Marvel's "space-born super-hero" takes center stage in this July 1968 entry, with cover art by Gene Colan and Vince Colletta rendered in a striking green-and-yellow palette that gives the whole image an otherworldly intensity. The cover shows Captain Marvel reeling backward under the effect of some powerful machine, while a menacing green-skinned alien figure works the controls below him — a vivid promise of the high-stakes conflict hinted at by the tagline "From the Ashes of Defeat!" Roy Thomas and Gene Colan were clearly firing on all cylinders this early in the series, and this issue captures that scrappy, anything-can-happen energy that made Marvel's late-'60s output so compelling.