Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #16

Part two of the five-part "Apogee of Disaster" arc takes S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest somewhere no spy thriller usually goes — outer space. Keith Pollard and Kim DeMulder's cover captures Nick Fury front and center in a blue-and-gold spacesuit, eye patch intact and pistol raised, leading a squad of four armed agents drifting through a star-flecked void above a distant planet. It's a genuinely striking image that sets up D. G. Chichester's story with the right mix of espionage tension and cosmic scale.