Action Comics #653

Among the grittier images to grace an early-1990 DC cover, this one pulls no punches: Clark Kent lies sprawled in a cemetery, his dress shirt torn open to reveal the Superman emblem beneath, while a gnarled tree looms over a "Rest in Peace" headstone behind him. The atmosphere is haunting and deeply unsettling — Superman reduced, at least in appearance, to something achingly vulnerable amid iron fences and shadowed graves. Kerry Gammill's pencils and Brett Breeding's inks give the scene a raw, almost painterly weight that makes Roger Stern's story title, "Love & Death," feel immediately charged with consequence.