Animal Man #73

From DC's Vertigo imprint in July 1994, Animal Man #73 presents one of the run's most quietly unsettling covers: a frightened young child sits hunched and vulnerable, hands pressed to his face, while a massive winged, horned demon crouches behind him in a suffocating embrace — all rendered against a cold blue backdrop of stacked television sets by cover artist Mark Chiarello. The contrast between the small, pale boy and the looming dark creature gives the image a genuinely eerie weight that suits the Vertigo label perfectly. With Jamie Delano writing and Steve Pugh on interior art, this issue — titled "Children and Animals" — promises the kind of unsettling, thoughtful storytelling this series delivered throughout its mature-readers era.