The Incredible Hulk (1962)

The Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1962), cover by Jack Kirby The whole premise fits in one stacked composition: a looming gray Hulk fills the cover, and a small Bruce Banner stands in front of him, a man literally overshadowed by the monster inside him. It is a design about scale and identity rather than action, which is why it adapts so well. Marvel returned to it for Incredible Hulk #324 in 1986 to announce the gray Hulk's comeback, and the man-and-shadow layout turns up whenever a cover needs to say that a hero and a monster are the same person.