Mutant X #1

Marvel's 1998 series Mutant X launches here with a cover that sets an immediately unsettling tone — a blond, black-suited Alex Summers dominates the foreground, his expression hard and guarded beneath a stormy, lightning-split sky, while a blue-skinned elder figure looms to his left and a red-haired woman watches warily from the right. The tagline "Fear Him. Fear For Him." perfectly captures the dual threat and vulnerability promised by the header copy about Alex being "trapped in a world of darkness." With writer Howard Mackie and cover artists Tom Raney and Andrew Pepoy delivering this striking opening image, it's a compelling introduction to what looks like a darker, more dangerous corner of the Marvel mutant universe.