Black Widow #10

Phil Noto's cover for this 2014 Marvel issue is a quietly arresting composition — Natasha Romanoff's cool, unreadable expression dominates the frame, her red hair sweeping across a muted violet background, while a smaller figure armed with a bow and arrow lurks in the lower left, the Black Widow hourglass emblem anchoring the center. The pairing of those two figures, rendered in Noto's fluid, painterly linework, hints at a tense alliance — or confrontation — without giving a single thing away. Writer Nathan Edmondson and the multitalented Noto continue to make this one of Marvel's most stylishly understated books.