Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #2

Adam Hughes' cover for this second installment of the Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan miniseries is a loving homage to vintage science-fiction pulp magazines, complete with retro typography announcing "It Came From Dimension..." and credited to one "Max Shea." Towering above the composition, the blue-skinned, godlike Dr. Manhattan looms against a starfield and planetary bodies, while a glamorous woman in a space helmet and form-fitting suit occupies the foreground — the whole image styled with that warm, halftone-tinged palette of mid-century genre fiction. Written by J. Michael Straczynski with art throughout by Adam Hughes, this December 2012 issue ("One-Fifteen P.M.") channels the eerie wonder of atomic-age storytelling through one of comics' most philosophically complex figures.