Outlaw Nation #8

Glenn Fabry's cover for this June 2001 Vertigo entry sets a tense, lived-in mood: a shirtless young man with a shotgun sits on the ground, his leg wrapped in a heavy bandage bearing the word "MOM," while three figures — a man in a cowboy hat with a holstered sidearm, a dark-haired woman, and a redhead — confer beside a military-style vehicle behind him. The title "Crossfire" promises exactly the kind of pressurized standoff that Jamie Delano's writing and Goran Sudžuka's art made Outlaw Nation such a compelling Mature Readers series. Raw, grounded, and quietly unsettling — this issue wears its tension well.