DMZ #3

The third chapter of Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's "On the Ground" arc concludes here, and the cover alone sets a gripping tone — a press credential belonging to one Roth, a Liberty News staff photographer, dominates the composition, complete with fingerprint, barcode, and blood type, while a red-tinged cityscape with a circling helicopter looms behind it. Wood's cover art frames the DMZ not through the barrel of a gun but through the ID badge of someone just trying to report the truth, which feels quietly powerful. It's a sharp, design-forward piece of work that makes this Vertigo series feel as urgent in 2006 as the headlines it's clearly riffing on.