Shade, the Changing Man #4

Steve Ditko's cover for this January 1977 DC issue crackles with otherworldly energy — Shade himself dominates the center, his head wreathed in flame and his expression fierce, while enormous yellow hands loom from the left like some cosmic threat closing in. A yellow-suited figure crouches in the foreground and a blonde woman in a patterned bodysuit is pinned against a glowing column to the right, giving the whole composition a sense of desperate, multi-front chaos. With Ditko both writing and drawing — alongside co-writer Michael Fleisher — Shade, the Changing Man #4 and its tantalizing story title "To Rescue My Destroyer" promise the kind of wild, dimension-bending adventure this series does so well.