Damsels #5

Dynamite's Damsels #5 brings a striking playing-card design to its cover, framing two fierce women as mirror-image queens — one a red-hooded warrior gripping an axe before a castle backdrop, the other an inverted dark-haired figure clutching a dagger, both reaching toward a pair of skulls at the center. The Queen of Hearts motif gives the whole composition an eerie, elegant tension that feels right at home in a series reimagining fairy-tale heroines as something far more dangerous. At $3.99, this 2013 Dynamite entry is a visually inventive installment in a series that clearly has no interest in keeping its damsels in distress.