Criminal #4

From the acclaimed team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, this French Delcourt edition of Criminal collects the arc titled "Putain de Nuit!" — and the cover sets the tone immediately. A red-haired woman, wrapped in a pink sheet and clutching a handgun at her side, stares out with a gaze that's equal parts defiance and desperation, rendered in Phillips's painterly, noir-soaked style. It's a 2009 release that captures everything Criminal does best: dangerous women, loaded silences, and the feeling that everything is about to go very wrong.