Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #23

Two fierce figures lock eyes across the blade of a crossed sword in Jo Chen's gripping painted cover — Buffy squaring off against a grinning, mohawked opponent in what feels like a dangerously personal standoff. The "Predators and Prey" arc continues in this 2009 chapter of Season Eight, with writer Drew Z. Greenberg joined by artist Georges Jeanty, inker Andy Owens, and colorist Michelle Madsen. It's a tense, beautifully rendered issue that captures exactly the kind of charged, face-to-face confrontation that keeps this Dark Horse continuation of Joss Whedon's saga so compelling.