Hack/Slash #5

Framed like a vintage Art Nouveau broadside, Jenny Frison's cover for this 2011 Image issue presents a striking tableau: Cassie Hack, dark-haired and kneeling with a blade at her side, is enveloped from behind by the skull-faced, ethereal Fantomah — Mystery Woman of the Jungle — whose glowing star-studded presence looms large against a stormy, amber-tinged sky. The subtitle "The Return of Fantomah" makes the crossover promise impossible to miss, pairing one of horror comics' sharpest slasher hunters with a figure rooted in pulp mythology. With Tim Seeley writing and Kyle Strahm on interior art, "Mystery Woman" looks to be a genuinely atmospheric chapter in the Hack/Slash run.