Kinetic #7

DC Focus's Kinetic was one of 2004's more quietly compelling superhero experiments, and issue #7 keeps that introspective energy front and center. Warren Pleece's cover is genuinely arresting — a teenage skateboarder rides his board across the surface of an enormous, anguished face that fills the entire background, its glowing white eyes blazing beneath him. The image captures the series' blend of ordinary-kid energy and something much larger and more unsettling lurking underneath, with Kelley Puckett and Warren Pleece's names up top promising the same thoughtful creative team that's carried the book this far.