A major part of the Marvel black & white mags, and therefore of my own particular Bronze Age, were the glorious cover paintings by Earl Norem, who seemed to contribute to just about every title in the line.
Earl had previously toiled in the 'Men's Sweat' magazines, contributing magnificent work like this:
And this:
But even if we hadn't known that's where he earned his chops, you could kind of tell from his Marvel covers anyway. His figures have absolute weight and reality, and are just this side of over the top. Here's some of my favourites:
