Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows #4

Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows builds to a fever pitch with this fourth issue, "Shadow Play." Gabriel Rodriguez's cover says it all: a young boy wearing a metal pot as a makeshift helmet presses against a window, one hand splayed in alarm and the other raised in a defiant fist, while a horde of grotesque shadow creatures — horned demons, skulls, and writhing dark forms — loom behind him in the gloom. It's a quietly powerful image, a child's improvised courage set against something genuinely terrifying, and it perfectly captures why this series earned so much admiration from horror fans in 2010.