Journey into Mystery #631

Part of Marvel's 2012 "Shattered Heroes" banner, this issue of Journey into Mystery arrives in the aftermath of Fear Itself with young Loki clearly at the center of some very uncomfortable attention. Stephanie Hans's cover is a striking close-up of the boy Loki, dressed in his green-and-gold Asgardian garb, his expression caught somewhere between anxiety and defiance as multiple hands reach in from the edges of the frame to point and grab at him — a quietly unsettling image of a trickster who can't quite trick his way out of scrutiny. With Kieron Gillen writing and Whilce Portacio on interior art, this is one of those issues where the cover alone makes you want to know exactly what everyone is accusing him of.