Justice League: Generation Lost #20

Part of DC's 2011 Brightest Day crossover event, this penultimate chapter of Justice League: Generation Lost carries the bold tagline "The Rise of Max Lord" — and Dustin Nguyen's cover delivers on that promise with a cold-eyed Max Lord leveling a pistol directly at the reader, explosions blazing behind him, while fragmented images of armored figures and glowing-eyed robotic forms flank the composition. It's a striking visual that frames Max as the orchestrating threat the series has been building toward. With Judd Winick scripting and Joe Bennett on interior art, this issue lands with a sense of real stakes for the beleaguered team.