Aquaman #39

This striking December 1997 issue fills the entire cover with an extreme close-up of Aquaman's weathered, intense face — wild golden hair swept back, piercing blue eyes locked forward, and a school of small fish drifting across him as if he's already submerged in the deep. Jim Calafiore's pencils and Mark McKenna's inks give Arthur a raw, brooding presence that feels genuinely formidable. Peter David's "Bad Relations" promises the kind of sharp, character-driven storytelling that made his run on this series so compelling.