Aliens: Defiance #9

A massive Xenomorph looms in close-up against a deep-space backdrop of crimson and violet starfields, its rows of gleaming teeth parted wide enough to swallow the tiny spacecraft caught in its jaws — a vessel whose lone beam of light cuts defiantly into the dark. Stephanie Hans's cover for Aliens: Defiance #9 is a genuinely striking piece of work, scaling the terror of these creatures against the fragility of human technology in a single, arresting image. Brian Wood, Tony Brescini, and Dan Jackson continue the "Defiance" saga here with "Episode Nine: Invasion" — a title that, paired with this cover, promises exactly the kind of desperate, claustrophobic tension the series does so well.