Hellblazer #164

Brian Azzarello and Marcelo Frusin kick off "Highwater" with this striking September 2001 Vertigo issue, the first chapter of a four-part arc. Tim Bradstreet's cover assembles a tense collage of faces — a grim, glasses-wearing figure, a sneering man with sunglasses against a "No Future" backdrop, a snarling skinhead, and a cigarette-smoking John Constantine in the foreground — all framed by a stark crossed-keys emblem and a real-world photograph of riot police. The interplay of punk imagery, street-level menace, and Constantine's weary cool signals exactly the kind of grounded, politically charged storytelling Azzarello brought to this run.