Checkmate #23

From the creative team of Kupperberg, Erwin, and Vey comes this December 1989 entry in DC's espionage series — and that cover makes an immediate impression. A helmeted agent fills the frame in tight close-up, his shield emblem gleaming on his forehead and a wide, unsettling grin on his face, gun barrel leveled directly at the reader — with the cheeky "Buy or Die!" caption driving the point home. Steve Erwin's cover art turns a simple composition into something genuinely striking, and "Peaceful Knights" promises that Checkmate's blend of spy tension and superhero intrigue is very much still in play.