Ascender #4

Dustin Nguyen's watercolor cover for Ascender #4 washes the entire composition in deep crimson, with four figures — a serene figure trailing flame-like hair at the top, two masked faces in the middle ground, and a stern, watchful face looming in the foreground — merging together like fragments of a fevered vision. The monochromatic red palette gives the image an almost ritualistic intensity that feels entirely at home in Jeff Lemire and Nguyen's sci-fi/fantasy universe. If you've been following this Image series, issue #4 makes a genuinely striking object just to hold.