Omega: The Unknown #5

Halfway through this ten-issue Marvel limited series, novelist Jonathan Lethem and artist Farel Dalrymple deliver a cover that speaks volumes without a single word. A young man kneels on the ground, lifting the empty blue-and-red costume of Omega the Unknown — mask and all — with an expression somewhere between grief and disbelief. Dalrymple's understated linework gives the image a quiet, literary weight that sets this 2008 series apart from most superhero fare.