Outer Space #21

Steve Ditko's cover for this March 1959 Charlton sci-fi anthology drops readers right into an alien landscape, where two U.S.-marked astronauts in yellow helmets and green suits find themselves in a tense, mysterious situation — one crouching in the foreground, another restrained nearby, while a dark, winged spacecraft hovers ominously against a glowing pink planetary body overhead. The eerie alien architecture and scattering of distant stars give the scene a genuinely unsettling sense of isolation far from home. Add in a contest promising 8,000 prizes and a story titled "Blueprint for Survival," and this ten-cent Charlton package delivers a satisfying slice of late-'50s space-age imagination.