Nightwing #3

The third chapter of this 1995 four-part DC miniseries delivers one of the more unsettling cover images of the year: Nightwing suspended helplessly by his own red lines against a twilight sky, his body limp and his costume torn and bloodied, with jagged rocky silhouettes looming in the darkness below. The stark title "The Traitor's Death" makes the stakes unmistakably grim, and cover artist Brian Stelfreeze wrings genuine tension from the simple, vertical composition. With Dennis O'Neil writing and Greg Land on interior art, this penultimate installment looks to push Dick Grayson to his breaking point.