Hellblazer #165

Part two of Brian Azzarello and Marcelo Frusin's "Highwater" arc arrives with a Tim Bradstreet cover that lays out a tense collage of hard faces and harder circumstances — a scarred, bespectacled man dominates the center panels, a figure lurks in a shadowy stairwell, a shaven-headed man levels a pistol, and a cold, sunglasses-wearing figure looms in the corner. The ominous red double-cross symbol anchoring the top of the design gives the whole composition a conspiratorial, almost ritualistic weight. Vertigo's mature-readers street-level thriller is clearly deep in its stride.