Joe the Barbarian #4

This fourth chapter of Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy's Vertigo series pitches Joe himself front and center, wide-eyed and reaching toward the viewer in a moment of pure, kinetic alarm, surrounded by a whirlwind of fantastical figures — a towering armored warrior in white brandishing blades, a goggled young companion, and a chaotic swirl of additional combatants filling every corner of the frame. Sean Murphy's linework crackles with energy, pulling the eye in every direction at once across a composition that feels genuinely out of control in the best possible way. Issue four of eight, "Inventoria" keeps this 2010 Vertigo miniseries firing on all cylinders.