2000 AD #1786

Prog 1786 marks a genuinely poignant moment for 2000 AD readers in 2012 — the banner across the top announces the start of the final Nikolai Dante story, and John Burns's painted cover captures that bittersweet weight perfectly. A swashbuckling figure in a red jacket and white ruffled shirt stands arms outstretched atop a curved surface, silhouetted against a blazing sunset sky of deep orange and stormy clouds, the cover copy declaring "The Beginning of the End… The Sun Sets on a Saga." It's an elegiac, almost operatic image — Burns's painterly linework giving the whole thing a warmth and grandeur entirely fitting for a long-running saga taking its final bow.