Hellblazer #186

Hellblazer #186 brings writer Mike Carey and artist Marcelo Frusin's "Third Worlds: The Pit" arc to its third chapter under a striking Tim Bradstreet cover that layers three vivid vignettes — a massive stone skull looming in darkness above, a lone silhouetted figure standing against a blood-red African sunset at center, and a close trio of faces below: a dark-haired woman, a cigarette-smoking John Constantine, and a weathered elder. The fragmented, panel-within-a-panel composition gives the whole thing a sense of worlds pressing against each other, which feels exactly right for a story with "Third Worlds" in the title. Vertigo's mature-readers imprint is very much at home here, and 2003 was a strong stretch for this creative team.