American Virgin #9

Joshua Middleton's cover for this January 2007 Vertigo issue places a winged blonde figure center stage — arrow pierced, arms raised, set against a parchment-like backdrop of Biblical scripture passages that include fragments about nakedness and the Fall. The composition is striking in its layering of the sacred and the visceral, perfectly embodying the series' ongoing tension between faith and the complications of the flesh. Steven T. Seagle and Becky Cloonan bring "Going Down" to its fifth and final chapter here, making this a satisfying close to one of Vertigo's more thought-provoking ongoing series of 2007.