Manifest Destiny #43

Manifest Destiny continues its beautifully unsettling reimagining of the American frontier with issue #43, and Matthew Roberts delivers a cover that stops you cold. A skeletal figure in a tattered military uniform — epaulettes, sash, and sword intact — stands amid a field of yellow wildflowers, while an enormous, otherworldly antlered skull looms over the scene and dark monolithic formations rise into a hazy pink sky. Owen Gieni's muted, painterly palette gives the whole image an eerie pastoral quality that perfectly captures what Chris Dingess's series does best: making the frontier feel simultaneously wondrous and deeply wrong.