Marvel Tales #65

This 1976 reprint gem from Marvel's Marvel Tales series puts Spider-Man in a genuinely precarious spot — on the cover, penciled and inked by John Romita, a massive, hulking Kingpin has Spider-Man tangled up and at his mercy amid a chaotic, rubble-strewn interior setting. The tagline "The Kingpin Strikes Back!" makes clear that the wall-crawler isn't having an easy time of it, and the dynamic composition captures that sense of overwhelming force bearing down on our hero. A small inset of Spider-Man in the upper corner adds a nice extra flourish to an already energetic cover for any fan of classic Marvel storytelling.