Gambit & Bishop #4

Part 4 of 6 in the "Sons of the Atom" bi-weekly series, this 2001 Marvel issue delivers a cover by J. H. Williams III and Mick Gray that is genuinely hard to look away from — two figures, their faces contorted in agony or rage, are engulfed and crushed by a writhing mass of mechanical tendrils and robotic components, with a burst of pink energy crackling through the chaos. A small inset panel in the corner teases Gambit and Bishop face-to-face, hinting at the rivalry that writers Scott Lobdell and Joe Pruett are building toward the series' conclusion. With Tom Derenick on interior art, this penultimate stretch of the story looks to be pushing both X-Men to their absolute limits.