The title was one of four launched by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas to form a line of science fiction and horror anthologies with more thematic cohesiveness than the company's earlier attempts that decade,[1] which had included such series as Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows.

The first issue featured Frederik Pohl's "The Day After the Day the Martians Came," adapted by writer Gerry Conway and artist Ralph Reese, and "He that Hath Wings", adapted by writer-penciler Gil Kane from a 1934 Edmond Hamilton story published in the pulp magazine Popular Fiction.

It also included a story from Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics: the three-page "Nightmare at Noon", with art by Angelo Torres, from Astonishing #54 (Oct.

Titled The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: Land of the Lost, it was by writer Len Wein and penciler George Tuska.

(adapted by Gerry Conway) and lyrical Kane drawings for Ed Hamilton's "He That Hath Wings", which the artist also scripted".