Man's Conquest

 

In its early days Man's Conquest specialised in covers that depicted rugged men in conflict with wildlife, ranging from poisonous spiders to wild dogs.  This, the July 1957 issue, has a cover painting illustrating the story 'Man Against Man Eaters', which, I'm assuming, is a retelling of the true story of the 'Tsavo maneaters'.  This story, which has inspired several films, including Bwana Devil (1952), Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959) and The Ghost and The Darkness (1996), concerned the activities of a pair of man eating lions, that severely delayed the construction of the Kenya-Uganda railway in 1898.  Eventually, a specialist big game hunter was called in by the railway company to kill the animals.  So, for once, a seemingly incredible man's adventure story actually has some basis in truth.  The rest of the stories featured on the cover are strictly business as usual: 'Strange Cults of California', 'Night of the 30 Virgins' (a 'weird jungle ordeal' apparently) and the inevitable sex expose: 'Sex and Marriage: The Trouble With the "Ideal" Woman'.

The 'man against nature' style of covers lasted until the end of 1958, when the emphasis switched to war-themed covers.  These gradually shifted from 'men in action' type covers, featuring rugged looking servicemen enduring explosions and enemy gun fire, to covers featuring women in their under wear either being imperiled by Nazis/Japs/Commies, or wielding guns themselves as they mow down Nazis/Japs/Commies.  The contents of the magazine also shifted, becoming more orientated to, first, war stories, then sex-based stories and articles.  Toward the end of the magazine's run, in the early seventies, the covers more frequently featured those semi-naked girls being menaced by Hell's Angels or knife gangs, as war stories started to fall out of favour.  Indeed, the very last issue in April 1972 featured two gang-bangers knife fighting in the background, while, in the foreground, a third molests a blonde who is in danger of falling out of her torn clothes.