DMZ #32

Part four of the "Blood in the Game" arc finds Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's Vertigo series in tense form — and the cover, drawn and inked by Wood himself, sets the mood perfectly. Against a smoldering red backdrop, a masked figure crouches with a rifle at the ready, surrounded by an eruption of what appears to be a cascade of spent shell casings or debris filling the air around them. It's a striking, minimalist image that captures the series' war-zone atmosphere with quiet menace, making this 2008 issue a compelling entry point into one of Vertigo's most politically charged ongoing series.