Marvel Knights #6

Tied into the 2000 Marvel-wide "Maximum Security" crossover, this issue of Marvel Knights throws a heavily armed, bloodied street-level fighter — surrounded by scattered grenades and spent shell casings — directly into the path of a massive, winged alien creature whose tattered, razor-edged form dominates the cover. The raw, visceral energy of Joe Quesada's pencils, inked by Danny Miki, makes the desperate struggle feel genuinely tactile and urgent. With Chuck Dixon scripting and Eduardo Barreto on interior art, "The Reckoning" looks like exactly the kind of brutal, no-safety-net confrontation the Marvel Knights line did so well.