Elektra: Assassin #2

The second chapter of Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz's eight-issue Epic Comics limited series arrives with a cover that hits like a gut-punch: a weathered, cigarette-smoking man levels a gun barrel directly at the viewer, his heavy-lidded eyes cold and calculating against Sienkiewicz's painterly, expressionistic brushwork. The looming close-up and drifting smoke give the image an almost cinematic menace that perfectly suits a story titled "The Ugly Man." It's a bold, unsettling piece of 1986 comics art that makes clear this series is operating in territory well outside the mainstream superhero fare of its day.