Breath of Shadows #5

The penultimate issue of IDW's Breath of Shadows arrives with one of 2023's most unsettling cover images: a figure whose face has been grotesquely overtaken by a massive insect-like creature, blank white eyes staring outward from the horror while grasping hands reach in from the edges of the frame. Alex Cormack's art surrounds the central nightmare with hypnotic spiraling halos and sinuous green tendrils crawling up ornate columns, giving the whole composition a psychedelic, almost ritualistic dread. If this series has been building toward something dark and strange, this cover promises the payoff is close.