6. Jungle Action - Issue 14
In this 1970s series, which starred The Black Panther as he roamed the jungles of Africa fighting enemies with names like Erik Killmonger and Venomm, writer Don McGregor crafted one of the most tragic, yet unerringly mundane, incidents ever to grace a comics page. As The Panther struggles to subdue a rampaging T. Rex (no, really), we are given small glimpses of a tiny, helpless bird trapped in some tar near to where the action is taking place. The bird struggles to free itself, but is unable to do so and fails to be noticed by any other character in the story, including the hero. Eventually, the poor creature slips under the tar and dies, something which happens every day in nature, but is given a special importance by McGregor. Comics are weird; up until 1975, you may have seen superheroes fighting dinosaurs a million times, but youd never seen a poor, trapped little bird become the centre of attention and elicit so much reader sympathy with its final, exhausted breath.