Planetary #2

The cover of Planetary #2 says it all with gleeful economy — a colossal, reanimated T-rex skeleton looms over a billowing wall of fire and explosions while three figures sprint for their lives beneath it, one of them shouting the very sensible translated sentiment, "I think we shall run." John Cassaday's linework gives the skeletal dinosaur a genuinely unsettling presence, framed against that churning orange-and-green sky with a globe tucked behind its grinning skull. Warren Ellis and Cassaday's WildStorm series was already making a strong case in 1999 for big, strange ideas delivered with wit, and this cover — promising "Action! Terror! Fun!" in both English and Japanese — makes good on every word.