Checkmate #5

Greg Rucka and Jesús Saiz's espionage thriller hits its fifth issue with a cover by Lee Bermejo that immediately commands attention — a sharp-eyed, red-haired woman in a dark hood clutches a white chess knight piece while armed soldiers, a snarling guard dog, and barbed wire crowd the background behind her. The chess imagery feels perfectly at home in a series called Checkmate, underscoring the high-stakes, strategic tension at the heart of the "Selection" storyline. It's a tense, beautifully composed image that makes this October 2006 issue hard to pass up.