Hellblazer #205

This fourth and final chapter of Mike Carey's "Reasons to Be Cheerful" arc arrives with a Tim Bradstreet cover that's all dread and fragmentation — a unconscious or worse figure sprawled against wood at the top, blood spattering the frame, while a grid of unsettling close-ups below assembles a green eye, a brooding young man, two dark-haired women, scattered pills, and a lone axe into something that feels like the scattered pieces of a nightmare. It's the kind of composed, photorealistic tension Bradstreet does so well, layering mood rather than action to suggest a story reaching a grim reckoning. With Leonardo Manco handling interior art, this 2005 Vertigo installment delivers the mature, atmospheric storytelling that made Hellblazer essential reading.