Doomsday Clock #10

Two issues from the end of this ambitious twelve-part series, Doomsday Clock #10 delivers a cover that drips with noir menace: a glamorous woman in a black evening gown stands coolly in a doorway, cigarette smoke curling from her fingers, while a battered figure lies unconscious at her feet and a fallen chess piece rests nearby. Gary Frank's strikingly rendered black-and-white artwork gives the scene the feel of a hardboiled crime painting, with the shadowed figure looming at left adding one more layer of unease. Written by Geoff Johns with lettering by Rob Leigh, this penultimate stretch of the story promises that the tension building across the series is far from finished.