Animal Man #45

Brian Bolland's cover for this March 1992 issue announces the arrival of the Penalizer with gleeful menace — a broad-shouldered, mustachioed bruiser in a yellow trenchcoat plants his boot triumphantly on a dazed punk in a "Happy Flowers" shirt. A circular inset shows Animal Man himself, goggles on and phone in hand, looking like a man who wasn't expecting the call. Tom Veitch and Steve Dillon bring their offbeat sensibility to "The Beat of Darkness," and the cover's playful, self-aware energy makes it a fine snapshot of just how wonderfully strange this series could get.