New Avengers #22

This 2006 tie-in to Marvel's Civil War event puts Luke Cage front and center — literally — with his tattooed face filling the cover in an intense, unflinching close-up that radiates barely contained tension. Leinil Francis Yu's cover art strips everything down to that one powerful image, letting Cage's expression carry the full weight of the conflict tearing the superhero community apart. With Brian Michael Bendis writing the second chapter of "New Avengers: Disassembled," this is a sharp, character-driven moment in one of Marvel's most ambitious crossover events of the era.