The Savage Sword of Conan #10

Boris Vallejo's painted cover for this February 1976 issue is a visceral showcase of Conan at his most formidable — a massively muscled barbarian in a horned helmet strides forward with a bloodied sword, his red cape billowing behind him as skeletal undead figures and scattered skulls surround him across a blasted landscape. The cover blurb promises a "Death-Duel with the Undead Wizard," and with a fallen woman at his feet and ghoulish forms lurking at the edges, the sense of hard-won peril feels earned rather than exaggerated. Inside, Roy Thomas and John Buscema (inked by The Tribe) bring Robert E. Howard's world to life in what the cover bills as the cataclysmic conclusion of Conan the Conqueror — a fitting payoff for one of sword-and-sorcery's most enduring magazine runs.