Marvel Universe: The End #4

Thanos looms enormous and golden across this penultimate-stretch installment of Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom's six-part cosmic epic, his grinning visage radiating an almost divine authority against a blazing yellow field. It's a striking, spare image — all confidence and menace — perfectly suited to a story titled "Contamination" in a series literally called The End. Issue four of six, from 2003, this is Starlin doing what he does best: making the universe feel genuinely small in the shadow of one very dangerous smile.