Black Hammer #3

The cover of this third volume in Urban Comics' French-language Black Hammer collection — subtitled L'Heure du Jugement — is dominated by a towering, horned demon with bat wings and glowing yellow eyes, surrounded by a swarm of bats and a crowd of shuffling, dazed figures at its feet. Standing defiantly against this infernal giant is a masked heroine in a dark costume, hammer in hand, refusing to be dwarfed by the threat looming over her. Lemire, Ormston, and Stewart's melancholy superhero saga continues to show why it resonates so deeply — this image alone captures the series' gift for pitting very human-feeling characters against genuinely overwhelming darkness.