DMZ #36

The Island" arc reaches its conclusion in this January 2009 Vertigo issue, with a cover by John Paul Leon that layers the tension across every inch of the composition. A heavily equipped figure carrying a large camera dominates the center, flanked by roaming dogs and figures moving through a grim urban environment, while a lower register shows armed soldiers at rest against a cityscape that unmistakably evokes New York. Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson bring DMZ's war-zone Manhattan to this two-part story's finish line, and Leon's muted olive-and-shadow palette makes the cover feel like dispatches from a front that never quite ended.