Before Watchmen: Rorschach #2

Lee Bermejo's cover for this second issue of the four-part Before Watchmen: Rorschach miniseries is a genuinely unsettling piece of painted realism — a man's face stares blankly upward, his skin spattered with blood in blots that deliberately echo Rorschach inkblot patterns, while a diner plate of scrambled eggs, sausage, and ketchup looms above him in extreme close-up. The juxtaposition of the mundane and the visceral is quietly disturbing in the best possible way. Brian Azzarello and Bermejo were clearly committed to pushing the boundaries of this Mature-rated 2012 DC series, and this cover makes that ambition immediately, viscerally plain.