DMZ #40

DMZ's "War Powers" arc reaches its conclusion in this striking 2009 Vertigo issue, with a cover by John Paul Leon that commands immediate attention. A massive, close-cropped face dominates the composition — tinted lenses bearing a biohazard symbol and a red star reflecting the fractured world around him — while armed soldiers move through a wintry, war-scarred cityscape in the background. Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's series has always found the human stakes inside geopolitical chaos, and Leon's bold, graphic cover design captures that tension perfectly.