Legion of Super-Heroes #1 Cover Progression

*** I don't own any of the art. Just showing how the cover developed. ***

On a Facebook thread recently, Dennis Ray posted the Nick Cardy cover to the Legion of Super-Heroes #1, the first issue of a four issue reprint series between their loss of Adventure Comics and their backups in Action Comics.

It occured to me that I'd seen the preliminary drawing by - I believe - Carmine Infantino and the finished piece by Nick in the wild.

This gallery entry shows the original, printed, Curt Swan cover to Adventure Comics 328 (Jan 1965), the Carmine Infantino (or Cardy?) preliminary, the finished Nick Cardy piece, and the printed cover of reprint series called Legion of Super-Heroes (Feb 1973).

Infantino's layout is clearly more dynamic and eye catching though I think Nick draws the characters as adults rather than teens. Note the addition of the fleeing Phantom Girl and Cosmic Boy. I think either would have been able to help. PG could not be hurt and might reach into Superboy and grab his heart as the Vision or Kitty Pride could. CB could have thrown SB into the sky by using the iron in his blood if it caught him by surprise.

The Additional Images section has the individual images:

The preliminary image can be found in Dewey Cassell's collection here.
The finished art can be seen in the Heritage Auctions' archive here and in Nick Katradis' CAF.