Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction No. 1 Cover by Frank Kelly Freas

The house style for Marvel in the 1970s was definitely the work of art director John Romita Sr. If an editor didn’t think art had that Marvel look, Romita used his considerable skills to replace a figure or face.

This happened on prestige projects like the first Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man tabloid where Romita retouched Marvel characters drawn by penciller Ross Andru, and over at DC Neal Adams did the same for their characters.

For the first issue of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction someone felt that noted sci-fi and fantasy artist Frank Kelly Freas’ cover needed alteration to be a Marvel book, and the foreground human couple were replaced by Romita with a patch that had new figures and the brick wall they stood in front of.

I call it hubris.

Thankfully, Freas’ original painting is untouched and we get to see how it should have been published back in late 1974.

Layout and trade dress by me.

As published with the foreground figures by John Romita Sr.

Re-creating the book’s logo.

Original art scan of Freas’ unaltered painting from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

Re-created trade dress added.