Marvel Tales #122

Marvel Tales #122 delivers exactly the kind of unsettling pre-Code weirdness that made Atlas horror anthologies so compelling in 1954 — the cover by Carl Burgos presents an open coffin containing a headless suited body, while a disembodied glowing head leers from the shadows of what appears to be a stone crypt, the tagline "Missing! One Body!" making the grim joke impossible to miss. It's a wonderfully ghoulish image that sets the tone for the "strangest stories ever told," including the interior tale "The Baby Sitter" with art by Tony DiPreta. At a dime a copy, this was prime nightmare fuel for anyone who dared pick it up off the newsstand.