The New Adventures of Superboy #40

The cover of The New Adventures of Superboy #40 tells its own little story before you even crack the spine: a Smallville Signs worker paints over the town's "Welcome to Smallville — Home of Superboy" billboard while, in the foreground, Clark Kent tears open his shirt to reveal the familiar S-shield beneath. The layered image — the billboard's heroic Superboy portrait on one side, the secret-identity reveal on the other, and that teasing "Watch This Space" message in between — makes the story title "Superboy No More" feel both urgent and cleverly staged. Howard Bender's pencils and Dick Giordano's inks give the whole scene a clean, expressive energy that's quintessentially early-'80s DC.