Criminal #5

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's hard-boiled noir series reaches its fifth chapter with a cover that says everything about the mood: a lone figure in a dark coat crouches low, pistol in hand, caught in a wash of deep blues and urgent reds that feel equal parts dread and adrenaline. Sean Phillips's cover art — recognized here with a Scream Award — renders that tension with a painter's eye, the slick ground beneath the figure glowing like something's already gone wrong. "Coward Part 5" promises a fitting climax to this arc from one of crime comics' most committed creative teams.