Monarch #5

Rodney Barnes, Alex Lins, and Luis NCT's Monarch reaches its fifth issue with a cover that crackles with raw, unsettling energy — a figure wracked by strange, swirling power clutches an unconscious companion against a backdrop of lightning and glowing orbs, their body consumed by eerie white markings while a luminous force pulses in one outstretched hand. The tension between protector and the clearly overwhelming cost of that protection gives the image a genuinely haunting emotional weight. At $3.99 from Image, this is Rodney Barnes doing what he does best — blending the visceral with the deeply human.