Henrique Alvim Corrêa's Martians Examine Captives, War of the Worlds 1906

Executed in dense, expressive pen-and-ink crosshatching, this illustration by Henrique Alvim Corrêa crackles with visceral tension. Three hooded Martian figures — bulbous, tentacled, and grotesque — crouch over a prostrate human captive, their writhing appendages coiling across the ground. Corrêa's trademark fine-line technique lends the aliens an organic, almost pathological horror, far removed from mechanical sci-fi tropes. Steam or gas billows ominously in the background, amplifying the scene's dread. A masterwork of Edwardian alien-invasion illustration.