Carnage U.S.A. #3

The cover of this third chapter in the five-issue limited series delivers a striking visual riff on Washington Crossing the Delaware — Carnage, draped in a tattered Revolutionary-era coat, stands triumphant at the prow of a small boat, clutching symbiote tendrils and clawed hands aloft while slumped, defeated figures surround him in the bloody water below. Clayton Crain's painted artwork gives the whole scene a visceral, unsettling grandeur that makes the patriotic parody land with real force. Writer Zeb Wells and Crain are clearly having a darkly inventive time putting America's iconography through Carnage's particular brand of chaos.