Paradise X #12

The penultimate chapter of Marvel's sweeping Paradise X saga arrives with issue #12, and Alex Ross's painted cover sets a fittingly cosmic tone — the rocky, unmistakable fist of the Thing dominates the frame, gripping what appears to be a staff or weapon as brilliant light radiates outward across a vast, nebula-filled expanse, with a small armored figure tumbling away in the distance. There's a genuine sense of scale here, the intimate detail of that stone-textured hand contrasted against the infinite, star-scattered backdrop making the whole image feel both personal and monumental. Written by Krueger and Ross, with interior art by Braithwaite and Reinhold, this is the kind of ambitious Marvel cosmic storytelling that made the Earth X trilogy such a memorable achievement of 2003.