Omega: The Unknown #4

Issue four of this ten-part Marvel limited series brings together novelist Jonathan Lethem, co-writer Karl Rusnak, and the singular artistic vision of Farel Dalrymple for what feels like one of 2008's most distinctive superhero comics. Dalrymple's cover is a striking collage of tension: a scarred, shaved head dominates the foreground while a bald eagle and a caped figure soar above a faceless crowd, a masked crimson hero stands amid the chaos, and a young person in a red hoodie levels a pistol directly at the viewer. The unsettling mix of the mundane and the extraordinary — a panicked bystander, a lurching robot, figures in distress — gives the whole image an anxious, off-kilter energy that sets this series apart from anything else on the stands that year.