Hellblazer #28

Jamie Delano's Hellblazer was consistently one of DC's most unsettling mature-reader titles in 1990, and issue #28 — "Thicker Than Water" — wears that reputation on its sleeve. Kent Williams's painted cover is quietly harrowing: a pair of massive, weathered hands clutch a broken doll while a pale-faced, fair-haired figure looms in the swirling background, the warm ochres and shadows giving the whole image a bruised, suffocating tension. With Ron Tiner on interior art and Delano at the helm, this is the kind of issue that reminds you why Hellblazer earned its "Suggested for Mature Readers" label in the first place.