The New Gods #19

The cover of this 1978 DC issue practically crackles with cosmic urgency — a blazing red villain looms overhead proclaiming the "Hour of Anti-Life," while a fallen New God lies sprawled across the foreground, flanked by a blue-skinned captive woman, a helmeted hero in red and yellow, and a masked figure in blue. Cover artists Joe Staton and Bob Layton pack the scene with desperation and scale, teasing that Orion and Darkseid are hurtling toward a deadly final combat. With Gerry Conway writing and Don Newton on interior art, this late-'70s chapter of Return of the New Gods promises the kind of mythic, universe-spanning stakes Jack Kirby's Fourth World was built for.