Hellblazer: City of Demons #1

Sean Murphy's cover for this first issue of the five-part Vertigo miniseries plants John Constantine — disheveled, cigarette in hand, looming large over a gritty London streetscape — against a backdrop of shadowy, red-tinged faces crowding in from the left. Below him, the city hums with ordinary life: a King's Cross double-decker bus, pedestrians at a stop, urban towers stretching into a murky amber sky. Si Spencer and Murphy together make this 2010 opener feel like exactly the right place to follow Constantine into whatever darkness the city is about to swallow whole.