Ex Machina #23

This installment of Brian K. Vaughan's politically charged series dresses its cover as a front page of the New York Daily Wire, complete with screaming headlines about a "Firefighter Thief" and a city honoring The Machine — a clever design that blurs the line between superhero comic and tabloid newspaper. Tony Harris's cover art juxtaposes a grayscale photograph-style image of a masked firefighter against an embossed metallic portrait, both framed by real flames leaping up from the bottom of the page. It's a striking, unconventional cover that captures the grounded, ripped-from-the-headlines tone that has made Ex Machina one of Wildstorm's most distinctive series of 2006.