Marvel #5

Alex Ross delivers a breathtaking painted cover for this fifth issue of Marvel, sweeping dozens of characters — cowboys on horseback charging through rose-tinted clouds, armored knights, a masked gunslinger, a leaping cheetah, soldiers, and a swirling crowd of costumed heroes and heroines tumbling together across the composition — into one grand, vertiginous tableau. The sheer density of figures, rendered with Ross's characteristic painterly richness, gives the whole image the feeling of a epic overture building toward something momentous. Adam Hughes serves as the complete creative force inside, making this an impressive single-creator effort paired with a cover that demands a second look.