Black Orchid #6

From DC's Vertigo imprint, this February 1994 issue presents a hauntingly atmospheric cover by Dave McKean — a shadowed, blue-tinged profile of Black Orchid emerging from near-darkness, her pale eyes catching the only real light, while a delicate orchid bloom floats in a framed inset below her, rendered in muted greens and lavenders. The juxtaposition of the figure and the fragile flower gives the whole composition a quiet, meditative tension that feels entirely at home in the Vertigo landscape of that era. With Dick Foreman writing and Jill Thompson on interior art, "The God in the Cage" promises the kind of thoughtful, mature storytelling this series does so well.