Human Target #9

Peter Milligan and Cliff Chiang's Vertigo series delivers a tense, sun-drenched standoff in this June 2004 issue, with three armed men caught in a dangerous triangle of drawn guns against a fiery California sunset backdrop of swaying palm trees. Chiang's cover composition is sharply cinematic — a suited figure squares off against another man pressing a pistol close while a third, stockier gunman closes in from behind. It's a gripping snapshot of the moral ambiguity and identity-bending tension that made Human Target one of Vertigo's most compelling crime series of its era.