Nocterra #9

Tony S. Daniel's cover for Nocterra #9 sets an unsettling tone: a lone, armored figure clutching a firearm stands defiantly small beneath a massive, writhing dark creature with glowing red eyes — its gnarled limbs spreading wide like a trap about to close. Scott Snyder and Tony S. Daniel's Image series continues to lean hard into its atmosphere of darkness-as-existential-threat, and Marcelo Maiolo's moody coloring — all smoldering amber light against deep shadow — makes the confrontation feel genuinely tense. If this cover is any measure, issue #9 keeps the series firing on all cylinders.