Back to Brooklyn #5

The penultimate chapter of this five-issue Image series from writers Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti, with art by Mihailo Vukelic, delivers exactly the kind of gut-punch finale setup the story has been building toward. Vukelic's cover says it all: a bloodied, bald bruiser raises a cleaver over a desperate, screaming man soaked in crimson, while a horrified bystander watches helplessly in the background — raw, visceral, and impossible to look away from. If "Sunday" is anything like this cover promises, it's a brutal, no-holds-barred conclusion to one of 2009's grittiest crime series.