Star Wars #63, September 1982. Writer David Michelinie was on a roll. He had introduced a love interest for Luke Skywalker, killed her off, and had the blood land on Luke's hands. Skywalker was essentially court martialed for the friendly fire death of Lieutenant Shira Brie, a death that came about when he trusted in the Force and instinctively blew her starfighter out of the sky. It was cracking good drama, and right in the middle of this post-
Empire Strikes Back tale, Darth Vader suddenly makes a splashy appearance. You don't need to know all that to appreciate this cover (after all, it clearly says "ALL NEW!" right there within the banner). It's a big fake out, unfortunately (turns out the Sith Lord's a hologram, a trick you can only really pull off in a comic book). The cover is irresistible, coming off as an amalgam of a darkly twisted Uncle Sam recruitment poster and a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past. If you're wondering why this copy looks so ragged, it's my actual comic that I used to carry around and obsessively read and re-read in the third grade.
