Hitman #3

Garth Ennis and John McCrea's 1996 series hits its third issue with a cover that makes the tension immediately clear — a bloodied, battered Tommy Monaghan lies flat on the ground, gun dropped beside him, while a swarm of grotesque, skeletal figures looms over him and a dark, caped Batman watches ominously from above in an industrial, pipe-lined setting. McCrea's cover linework is raw and kinetic, stacking figures in a chaotic vertical composition that practically vibrates with menace. With the story titled "A Rage In Arkham, Part Three," this issue promises the kind of gritty Gotham underworld clash that made this series one of DC's most distinctive offerings of the mid-nineties.