Archer & Armstrong #4

The "Sect Civil War" trade collecting Fred Van Lente, Khari Evans, and David Baron's run on this Valiant series delivers the oddball duo of Archer and Armstrong standing shoulder-to-shoulder against a daunting gallery of adversaries — a horned bull-like figure, a masked warrior woman, a cybernetically enhanced soldier, and a crowd of suspicious factions looming behind them. Archer grips his crossbow with quiet determination while the towering Armstrong clenches a massive fist, the two looking entirely unfazed by the overwhelming odds surrounding them. Clayton Henry's cover art captures the series' signature blend of action and absurdist conspiracy perfectly, and IGN's praise — "a perfect jumping-on point to one of the best comics being published right now" — makes this 2014 collection an easy recommendation.