Strange Tales #181

Strange Tales #181 (August 1975) delivers one of the more unsettling cover images of the era: Adam Warlock lies sprawled and defeated in the foreground, his gold-and-red costume battered, while a massive grey brute with glowing red eyes looms over him and a sinister clown in a blue tuxedo taunts him with the speech bubble "There's no escape from the — Madness Monster!" The sheer contrast between that lurching, hulking threat and the eerily grinning clown figure makes for a genuinely memorable composition, penciled by Jim Starlin and inked by Alan Weiss against a deep starfield backdrop. Starlin also handled the writing, interior art, and colors for "1000 Clowns!," making this a remarkably personal artistic vision from one of 1975 Marvel's most inventive storytellers.