Giant Mutant Ant Attacks Woman & Car — Amazing Science Fiction Stories, Nov. 1958

At the height of Cold War nuclear anxiety, giant insect stories embodied America's deepest fear: that atomic radiation would warp nature into something monstrous and unstoppable. A colossal ant — rendered with unsettling biological accuracy, compound eyes gleaming red — looms over a late-1950s tail-finned automobile and a fleeing woman in shorts, the mundane suburban world suddenly rendered helpless. The arid Western desert highway setting amplifies the isolation and dread of this quintessential 'creature feature' cover.