The Atom #12

The cover of The Atom #12 sets up a genuinely unsettling scenario: a shadowy villain in a fedora and green-tinted glasses aims an elaborate ray gun directly at a bank vault — and a shrunken, helpless Atom is trapped inside the weapon's chamber, being fired like a living projectile into the explosion bursting against the vault door. Cover pencils by Gil Kane and inks by Murphy Anderson give the image a crisp, kinetic energy that makes "the world's smallest super-hero" feel both thrillingly powerful and deeply vulnerable at the same time. As a bonus, the issue also promises a Time Pool adventure — "The Gold Hunters of '49!" — featuring none other than Edgar Allan Poe, making this 1964 DC package a genuinely varied read.