The Unexpected #152

From the moonlit docks of a fog-shrouded swamp, Nick Cardy's cover for this November 1973 DC anthology delivers a genuinely unsettling tableau: a red-haired woman clutching a lantern teeters atop a wooden post while a massive, hulking swamp creature rises from the dark water below, its grotesque form lit by an eerie green glow. The tagline "Dark Secret of the Swamp" and the series' trademark challenge — "Have you the nerve to face the Unexpected?" — set the mood perfectly for what's inside. With Carl Wessler writing and George Tuska on art, this twenty-cent issue is a fine slice of early-'70s DC horror atmosphere.