Mystery in Space #107

Murphy Anderson's cover for this 1966 DC sci-fi anthology delivers one of the stranger visual premises of the Silver Age: Ultra the Multi-Alien — that patchwork hero composed of four distinct alien physiologies — has apparently fragmented into four separate beings, three of them wild-eyed and out of control. The cover art vividly captures the chaos, with the four figures mid-lunge against a dark green background, each radiating a different alien quality, while an inset diagram calmly illustrates Ultra's composite form as if to remind us what's been lost. Writer Dave Wood and artist Lee Elias bring the interior story, but it's Anderson's cover composition that makes the stakes immediately, viscerally clear.