Brute Force #1

Marvel's 1990 four-issue limited series kicks off with a premise that's hard to resist: animals in combat armor, billed as "Protectors of the Environment," charging into action to save Planet Earth. The cover by José Delbo and Joe Sinnott puts the team front and center — a dolphin in a gold-and-blue battle suit wielding a weapon, a lion lunging forward in matching armor, a moose piloting a rugged vehicle, and what appears to be a bear in a tank rolling up behind them, while a sleek jet tears through a smoke-filled sky overhead. Writer Simon Furman and artist José Delbo clearly had ambitious, high-energy fun with this one, and that cover energy makes it easy to see why the animal kingdom was ready to throw down.