Fatale #3

Sean Phillips delivers a cover that practically radiates menace — a grim-faced man in a suit looms in the foreground while a gun thrusts directly toward the viewer against a backdrop of churning fire and smoke rendered in stark black-and-white against smoldering amber. Ed Brubaker and Phillips were already firing on all cylinders with this noir-horror series by its third issue in 2012, and this image captures that mood of desperate, cornered danger perfectly. If you want a comic that feels like a crime thriller crossed with something darker and older, this cover alone makes the case.