Mage, Book Three: The Hero Denied #6

The tension crackles — literally — on Matt Wagner's cover for this sixth issue of Mage: The Hero Denied, where a bolt of glowing lightning surges between a bearded man in a black-and-white lightning-bolt shirt and a sharp-eyed woman in a black dress clutching what appears to be a wand or baton, dark shapes swirling ominously in the background. That charged composition, rendered entirely by Wagner with colors by Brennan Wagner, captures the push-and-pull energy that has defined this long-awaited 2018 return of Kevin Matchstick's story. With a chapter title like "By and By, It Will Strike," this issue promises the kind of mythic confrontation that makes Mage such a deeply rewarding series.