Kurt Busiek's Astro City #22

Alex Ross's painted cover for this August 2000 issue sets a quietly compelling tone — a red-costumed, masked hero sits at a dressing-room mirror, costume draped over the chair, while a dark-haired woman lingers in the foreground, her expression thoughtful and guarded. It's an intimate, almost melancholy glimpse behind the superhero façade that feels entirely at home in Kurt Busiek's Astro City. With Brent Anderson on interior art and Ross delivering his signature painterly realism on the cover, "Great Expectations" promises the kind of grounded, human storytelling this series does so well.