Aquaman #56

From the June 1999 run of DC's long-running series, this issue drops readers right into the deep end — the cover by Eric Battle and Norm Rapmund fills the frame with a massive, dark-skinned, red-eyed creature whose clawed hands engulf a battered, golden-haired Aquaman, while the tagline "He's Back for the OTHER Hand!" makes the threat unmistakably personal. The raw, kinetic energy of Battle's pencils and Rapmund's inks gives the confrontation a visceral underwater urgency that's hard to look away from. Erik Larsen and Eric Battle were clearly having a lot of fun putting the King of the Seas through his paces in "Madman Across the Water.