The Savage Sword of Conan #185

The cover by Ovi Hondru sets a genuinely menacing tone: a massively hulking, fang-filled demon looms over a sword-wielding Conan, who drops into a fighting crouch on ancient stone pavement, clearly outmatched in size but not in nerve. That contrast — raw brute power versus the Barbarian's fierce determination — captures exactly the kind of pulse-quickening tension Robert E. Howard's world does best. With Renee Witterstaetter writing and Ernie Chan on art and inks, "The Masque of the Demon" looks like a solid entry in Marvel's long-running black-and-white series for 1991.