DMZ #5

Crosstown" charts a tense journey across a fractured Manhattan, visualized on the cover as a numbered route map cutting through the DMZ's war-torn grid — marked with X's at key landmarks from Stuy Town up to the Lincoln Tunnel. Below the map, a solitary figure in a cap stands against a dense, chaotic urban backdrop of graffiti, signage, and crowds, evoking the raw tension of life inside the demilitarized zone. Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's Vertigo series was already staking out bold, politically charged territory in 2006, and this issue's striking cover design — map and street-level portraiture combined — makes a strong case for why DMZ stood apart.