Hellblazer #123

Part three of Paul Jenkins and Warren Pleece's "Up the Down Staircase" arc arrives with a cover by Sean Phillips that stops you cold: a tumbler of amber liquid held in a dark hand becomes a miniature theater of chaos, with helicopters hovering above struggling figures and rifle-bearing soldiers swirling within the glass like a world trapped in whiskey. Looming above it all, shadowy and detached, is the unmistakable silhouette of John Constantine — cigarette in mouth, watching the violence contained below him. It's a quietly unsettling image that captures Hellblazer's knack for finding the surreal within the mundane, and with one issue left in the story, the tension feels perfectly poised.