American Carnage #9

This penultimate chapter of Bryan Hill's unflinching Vertigo series arrives with a cover by Ben Oliver that reads like a noir film poster — a determined Black woman dominates the foreground while a tense, close-cropped man raises a pistol beside her, with a suited figure holding a book, a wary blonde woman, a skull-faced gunman, and silhouetted motorcycle riders all layered behind them in moody purples and pinks. The ensemble arrangement suggests a web of loyalties and dangers converging at once, which feels exactly right for a story titled "Sacrifice." With Bryan Hill writing and Leandro Fernández and Dean White bringing their assured visual storytelling to the interior, this is mature, grounded crime fiction that Vertigo does so well.