Master of Kung Fu #19

Few matchups in 1974 Marvel could promise this kind of visceral spectacle: Shang-Chi — shirtless, red-headbanded, striking with bare-handed fury — squaring off in a murky swamp against the hulking, moss-covered mass of Man-Thing, whose dripping arm already recoils from the impact. The cover tagline says it plainly: "Martial Arts vs. Man-Thing — and one must fall!" — and Gil Kane's pencils and Tom Palmer's inks deliver every ounce of that threat, with swamp water flying and the monstrous creature looming impossibly large over Marvel's premier martial artist. Interior work by writer Steve Englehart and artist Paul Gulacy rounds out a creative team firing on all cylinders for this collision of two very different corners of the Marvel Universe.