All Star Superman #12

The concluding chapter of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's celebrated run arrives with a cover that says everything without saying a word: Superman, crumbling cityscape at his back, grips what appears to be a strange futuristic device while a bald, green-and-purple-clad Lex Luthor floats defiantly in the middle distance, a pulsing cosmic entity looming above him in a blaze of orange and fire. Quitely's linework — earned an Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series — renders both figures with quiet, monumental weight, the devastation around them feeling vast but somehow not hopeless. "Superman in Excelsis" promises a finale as grand as the title suggests, and this cover makes the anticipation almost unbearable.