East of West #45

By issue #45, Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta's East of West has fully grown into one of Image's most ambitious alternate-history epics, and this December 2019 entry keeps that momentum rolling. Dragotta's cover assembles a sweeping mosaic of the series' major figures — a pale, intense warrior, a masked woman, a fierce elder, a stoic bald figure bearing a diamond emblem, and a determined man gazing into the distance — all rendered in a striking amber and rust palette that feels equal parts mythic and apocalyptic. The tagline framing the image says it plainly: "We broke it, and there is no putting it back together" — which, under the chapter title "Apocalypse," makes this issue feel like essential reading for anyone invested in this world's fate.