The Flash #172

Few covers from 1967 deliver a gut-punch quite like this one: a triumphant Gorilla Grodd brandishing the Flash's empty, crumpled costume while taunting readers with the speech bubble "If you're looking for the Flash on this cover — forget it! This uniform is all that's left of him!" The stark black background makes Grodd's massive, snarling figure loom all the more menacingly over that familiar red-and-yellow suit. Cover art by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson sets a genuinely unsettling tone for John Broome's "Grodd Puts the Squeeze on Flash!" — a title that needs no elaboration.