Outlaw Nation #18

Vertigo's Outlaw Nation reaches its eighteenth issue with a cover by Glenn Fabry that stops you cold: a wild-haired, barefoot figure is hauled skyward by a massive bald eagle, both of them suspended high above rocky terrain against a vast blue sky — raw, vertiginous, and strangely mythic. The image captures the series' ongoing sense of American folklore pushed to its ragged edge, and the story title "A Time to Be Born" suggests the issue carries some weight to match it. Jamie Delano's writing paired with Goran Parlov's interior art makes this a worthwhile chapter in one of Vertigo's more restlessly original crime series from 2002.