Aquaman #46

This July 1998 issue puts Aquaman in the middle of a brutal underwater clash, his long blonde hair whipping as he strains to wrest control of a massive golden trident away from a hulking, green-scaled figure — the self-proclaimed God of the Seas — in a battle that looks nothing short of titanic. The cover tagline "…Against the God of the Seas!" frames the stakes perfectly, and the raw physicality of the struggle, rendered by cover penciler Ron Lim and inker Chris Ivy, gives the whole image a muscular intensity that pulls you right in. With Peter David writing and Jim Calafiore on interior art, "Fish Tartarus" promises the kind of sharp storytelling and deep-sea mythology that made this run a highlight of DC's late-'90s output.