The apocalypse

José Ortiz is widely recognised as one of the masters of comic art in his native Spain. He is known as the artist of Hombre and Burton y Cyb and one of the most popular contributors to the American horror magazines published by James Warren.

Like many of his contemporaries, Ortiz saw the American market as a way of escaping the strictures of the British comics market, where he had established himself in 1957, and earning a better return for his efforts. With James Warren's horror comics Vampirella, Eerie and others, he found the market he was looking for. As David Roach records in The Warren Companion, "At Warren he embraced the 'new look' with relish to produce a succession of superbly drawn stories such as Coffin, Night of the Jackass, and his masterpiece, The Apocalypse, which ran in Eerie #62-65. For these, he was named Warren's Best All Around Artist in 1974.

Plague, Famine, and War meet before "The Death," each insisting that he be chosen as the Grim Reaper's favorite. Death sends them off in a contest, to see who can wreak the most havoc. The corpses pile up but, when the trio return to visit Death, he announces that they all create equal paths to his dark door. Suddenly, the quartet are joined by children playing, youngsters they find themselves unable to kill. Death explains that children bring the promise of hope and love, and the only one mightier than the fearsome foursome is the Lord of Lords himself.