Incredible Hulk #53

Part four of "Dark Mind, Dark Hearts" arrives with one of the more quietly unsettling covers of 2003: a rain-soaked Bruce Banner stands shirtless and vulnerable in the foreground, his torn purple pants hinting at a transformation just ended — or about to begin — while a massive, glowing-eyed Hulk looms out of the darkness behind him. The dual image captures everything compelling about Bruce Jones's run, that constant tension between the fragile man and the raging force he can never fully escape. Kaare Andrews's painted cover work gives the whole thing a moody, cinematic weight, with Mike Deodato Jr. handling interior art duties alongside Jones's script.