No Mercy #1

From Image Comics in 2015, No Mercy #1 launches Alex de Campi and Carla Speed McNeil's YA survival thriller with a cover that immediately signals chaos — a group of young people tumble and scramble amid flying snacks, electronics, and debris as what appears to be a vehicle tips dangerously, their expressions ranging from shock to fierce determination. Carla Speed McNeil's linework crackles with kinetic energy, capturing each figure — fiery-haired, pink-haired, and others — in a single breathless moment of catastrophe, with Jenn Manley Lee's warm, tense colors amplifying the sense that everything is about to go very wrong. At $2.99, this is an inviting entry point into what Brian K. Vaughan (quoted on the cover itself) calls a thriller with "its brake line cut.