Bat Lash #4

Four issues into DC's six-part "Dead Reckoning" miniseries, and Bat Lash remains one of the most compelling figures in Western comics — a dandy with a flower in his hat and a double-barreled shotgun leveled straight at you. Walter Simonson's cover captures that contradiction perfectly: Bat Lash crouches in the foreground, grim-faced and coiled for violence, while a building blazes and figures scatter through the smoke behind him. Writers Sergio Aragonés and Peter Brandvold, alongside artist John Severin, bring "Guns and Roses Chapter 4: Blood Oath" to life — and that title alone suggests the stakes are only getting higher.