Invincible #12

Few covers in 2004 announced a series' willingness to go there quite like this one — Invincible lies broken and drenched in blood across a shattered concrete crater, his yellow-and-blue costume torn and his face badly beaten, one arm raised as if barely clinging to consciousness. Cory Walker's cover art is unflinching in its brutality, making it instantly clear that Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, and Bill Crabtree's series isn't pulling any punches with its young hero. If you've been following Mark Grayson's journey, issue #12 signals with stark visual honesty that the stakes have just been raised considerably.