Jacked #1

Vertigo's Jacked #1 kicks off Eric Kripke and John Higgins's six-part series with a cover by Glenn Fabry that sets the satirical tone perfectly: a middle-aged man in boxers and socks — briefcase in one hand, what appears to be an inhaler in the other — strides through a rubble-strewn, fire-lit cityscape with the kind of muscular confidence his soft midsection hasn't quite earned yet. It's an immediately funny and oddly compelling image, the everyday everyman caught somewhere between disaster and delusion. With the tagline "Get Strong. Get Hooked. Get… Jacked," this mature-readers series from 2016 promises a darkly comic ride through the perils of better living through chemistry.