Kill or Be Killed #19

Issue nineteen of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's crime-noir series arrives with a cover that's quietly unsettling — a young man caught mid-stumble, his expression a mix of shock and dark amusement, surrounded by bursts of vivid red-orange that press in from all sides against a stark white background. Elizabeth Breitweiser's coloring gives the image a watercolor fragility that makes the violence feel all the more intimate and strange. It's the kind of cover that pulls you in without shouting, which has always been one of this series' quiet strengths.