Avengers #9

A red-suited figure radiating brilliant energy beams stands at the center of a tense standoff on Dustin Weaver's dynamic cover, with a raging Hulk and a lightning-wreathed Thor looming from above while a muscular, bare-armed figure faces off from below. Jonathan Hickman's "Star Bound" arc continues here with art from both Weaver and Mike Deodato, promising the kind of massive-scale tension only a team this powerful — and this fractious — can generate. Issue #9 of this 2013 Marvel NOW! run delivers exactly the charged, larger-than-life energy that made Hickman's Avengers one of the most ambitious takes on Earth's Mightiest Heroes.