Superman #420

Superman #420 takes the Man of Steel back to Smallville for a battle the cover boldly promises he cannot win. Penciled by Denys Cowan and inked by Dick Giordano, the striking image shows Superman straining against a swarm of grotesque green creatures that coil and claw at him from every direction — while in the lower foreground, a sweating boy named Chris lies unconscious, seemingly the source of the nightmare threatening to destroy the hero. The plea "Wake up, Chris…before your dream kills me!!" gives the whole cover an eerie, imaginative charge that makes Elliot S! Maggin and Curt Swan's interior story genuinely hard to put down unread.