Before Watchmen: Comedian #4

The fourth chapter of Brian Azzarello and J. G. Jones's Before Watchmen: Comedian miniseries arrives with a cover that is quietly arresting — Jones renders the Comedian in full combat gear, his helmet bearing that familiar smiley-face button, standing between two young Vietnamese children in what reads like a wartime snapshot rendered in muted, almost monochromatic tones. The image carries an unsettling tenderness, the three figures posed almost like a souvenir photograph against a riverside backdrop streaked with cracks and hints of blood at the frame's edge. It's a haunting visual entry point into "Conquistador," capturing the moral complexity that makes Edward Blake one of the most fascinating — and troubling — figures in the Watchmen universe.