Journey into Mystery #640

This 2012 installment of Journey into Mystery presents a sweeping, atmospheric cover by Stephanie Hans: a young Loki in his green-and-gold garb stands beside a dark-haired woman on a white horse, the two figures dwarfed by a massive, gothic fortress looming dramatically in a stormy sky, lightning cracking overhead amid fire and ruin below. The sense of scale and peril is genuinely striking — Hans renders the scene with a painterly warmth that makes the quiet moment between the two figures all the more compelling against the chaos surrounding them. With Kieron Gillen writing and Richard Elson on interior art, this series was delivering some of Marvel's most thoughtful mythological storytelling in 2012.