Invincible Iron Man #30

Tony Stark cuts a sharp figure in formal black, dancing an intimate tango with a woman in an elegant dark dress — her hand clutching what appears to be a glowing Iron Man chest piece — while a mysterious figure holds a lit candelabra just behind them, all set against a swirling, luminous red-and-silver vortex backdrop. It's a striking, cinematic cover from Salvador Larroca that trades the usual armor and firepower for tension of a far more personal kind, perfectly teasing the "Stark Resilient" chapter subtitled Tony, We Don't Want To Destroy You. Matt Fraction and Larroca were clearly firing on all cylinders in 2010, and this issue promises the kind of high-stakes drama where the real battles happen in a ballroom rather than the sky.