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scarce; zombie cover
Never one to be caught asleep at the wheel, by the 1950s Martin Goodman saw that superheroes were on the outs, and readers were eager for more genre-focused titles, returning to the pre-Superman pulp habits of sci-fi, crime, western, and especially horror. Thus, the former Timely, now Atlas (eventually Marvel) became a haunting ground (ugh sorry) for freelancers and craftsmen left adrift by the hero bust of the late 1940s, as editor Stan Lee, desperate to keep his job, kept throwing everything at the wall that would stick, keeping most of the comic artist community of the period in pretzels and beer with constant commissions for weirdies and horrors. Typical of the period is this crude but effective living dead cover, with a trio of cadaverous visitors popping in just to say "howdy". In recent years, collectors have finally become savvy to the incredible rarity and desirability of this period of Marvel history, and prices have shot into the stratosphere, in all grades.