Startling Stories Mar 1942 — Space-Suited Hero Rescues Woman from Alien Tentacles

On a lurid alien world choked with writhing crimson tentacle-trees, a scantily clad woman in exotic jewelry recoils in terror as coiling tendrils snatch at her. Below her, a hero in a ribbed yellow-and-green spacesuit and sleek black helmet raises a ray gun against the encroaching alien flora — or is that fauna? The dramatic upward angle and deep jewel-green background amplify the frantic energy of a classic pulp damsel-in-peril set piece, dripping with Golden Age melodrama.