Outer Space #23

This July 1959 Charlton sci-fi anthology delivers an irresistible cover premise: a massive orange alien hand has seized a U.S. military rocket — designated X-140 — mid-flight, with the crew's panicked word balloons ("My gosh, Captain… it looks like a GIANT hand!!") adding a wonderfully urgent human dimension to the cosmic threat. Cover pencils by Charles Nicholas and inks by Rocco Mastroserio give the scene a gripping sense of scale, with a ringed planet looming in the starry background to reinforce just how far from home these astronauts are. At a dime a copy, Outer Space was delivering big-concept thrills that hold up as a vivid snapshot of late-'50s science fiction imagination.