Batman Reptilian #5

Liam Sharp's cover for this fifth installment of DC Black Label's Batman Reptilian is genuinely unsettling — a massive, scaled creature dominates the frame, its enormous clawed hand cradling a smaller yet equally grotesque reptilian figure with a grinning, skull-like face. The dark, murky palette and painterly texture give the whole image a visceral, nightmarish quality that feels right at home in the Black Label imprint. With Garth Ennis and Liam Sharp steering this mature-readers Batman story into its penultimate chapter, "Tears & Laughter" promises the series hasn't lost any of its bite.