Gotham Central #25

From a 2004 Eisner and Harvey Award-winning series, Gotham Central #25 arrives in January 2005 with a cover by Michael Lark that says everything about the tension at the heart of this book: Batman looms as an enormous, almost suffocating silhouette over a rooftop while a squad of Gotham police officers below train their weapons upward, outgunned by sheer presence alone. Writer Greg Rucka and artist Michael Lark, with inks by Stefano Gaudiano, have built one of DC's most grounded titles around exactly this friction — the city's finest versus the city's dark guardian — and "Lights Out" promises that conflict at full force.