Pigs #4

Two small figures — one in a rumpled suit, one in tactical gear clutching a blade — stand dwarfed beneath swaying palm tree silhouettes and an enormous mural-like image of a red-haired woman cradling bullets in her palm, a composition that immediately signals sun-soaked intrigue with genuine menace underneath. Becky Cloonan's cover art for this fourth chapter, titled "Sixteen," balances a sun-bleached, almost tourist-postcard warmth against the cold promise of violence in a way that feels distinctly 2011 Image. Writers Nate Cosby and Ben McCool, with art by Breno Tamura, have been delivering one of that year's more quietly gripping espionage series, and this issue looks every bit as tense and stylish as the ones before it.