New Gods #2

The Black Racer dominates this July 1984 cover in his striking red-and-blue costume and winged helmet, bearing down on a gun-wielding figure in the foreground whose revolver is aimed point-blank at him — the cover copy's urgent warning, "Don't Let Him Touch You!", makes the stakes electrifyingly clear. Jack Kirby's pencils, inked here by Mike Royer, give the scene tremendous kinetic energy, with the cosmic New God looming over a rooftop cityscape where bystanders scatter below. Paired with the story title "Death Is the Black Racer!," this issue promises exactly the kind of mythic, street-level tension that makes DC's Fourth World corner of 1984 so compelling.