Science Fiction Quarterly Spring 1942 – The Shadow Girl by Ray Cummings

Raw, visceral menace radiates from this wartime pulp cover as a knife-wielding hero in a white shirt desperately defends a terrified blonde woman from two hulking, bald-headed antagonists against a blazing yellow background. The looming red skeletal sphere device — perhaps a weapon or alien machine — dominates the upper right, amplifying the sense of technological dread. The figures are locked in brutal close-quarters struggle, rendered with muscular expressiveness typical of Golden Age pulp illustration.