Animal Man #87

DC's Vertigo imprint was producing some of the most visually striking covers of 1995, and this issue of Animal Man is a prime example. The cover by Rick Berry and Hannibal King presents an arresting, sculptural face — multi-eyed, adorned with small horns, and bearing a large key at its chest — while a smaller, crouching figure wreathed in flame occupies the lower right, the whole composition drenched in moody, earthy tones that feel simultaneously mythic and unsettling. Subtitled "Unlocking the Doors of Conception," this third chapter of the "Anima Mundi" arc, written by Jerry Prosser with art by Fred Harper, promises the kind of surreal, spiritually charged storytelling that made this era of the series so distinctive.