Criminal #10

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Eisner Award-winning noir series reaches its fifth chapter of "Lawless" with a cover that puts you right in the line of fire — a bloodied man in a dark coat levels a pistol directly at the viewer, a purple car looming at his side against a deep blue industrial backdrop. Sean Phillips's cover work is all lean tension and shadow, capturing the hard-boiled atmosphere that made Criminal one of 2007's most talked-about books. If you've been following this arc, issue #10 promises the kind of ruthless momentum the "Lawless" title implies.