Criminal #7

The fourth and final chapter of "Bad Night" arrives with a cover that radiates pure noir menace — a red-haired woman stares out with wide, alarmed eyes while leveling a pistol directly at the viewer, rendered in Sean Phillips's moody, shadow-drenched style. Ed Brubaker and Phillips were already delivering some of the sharpest crime fiction in comics in 2008, and this closing installment of their four-part arc promises the kind of tightly wound conclusion the story has been building toward. If you've been following Criminal's gritty, pulp-soaked world, this issue is exactly where you want to be.