Civil War: Front Line #4

Right in the thick of Marvel's 2006 Civil War crossover, this "Embedded" chapter drops readers into a tense, street-level moment: a bespectacled man in a rumpled jacket is sprawled against a brick wall, wide-eyed and clearly in trouble, while a menacing figure with a glowing jack-o'-lantern for a head looms over him — a dropped cell phone on the ground suggesting the confrontation came fast and hard. The cover art by John Watson captures that ground-floor vulnerability that makes Front Line such a compelling companion to the larger superhero conflict, keeping the human cost front and center. Paul Jenkins and Ramón Bachs deliver the kind of street-reporter tension that reminds readers wars — even super-powered ones — have very real casualties.