Punisher #17

The fifth chapter of Garth Ennis's "Mother Russia" arc arrives with a cover by Tim Bradstreet that says everything without a word — a bird's-eye view of Frank Castle standing at the center of a sprawling red-and-white floor, surrounded by a ring of fallen armed men in black, spent shell casings scattered across the blood-soaked scene. It's a striking, almost geometric image that frames the Punisher as a one-man force of reckoning, and Braithwaite and Reinhold bring the interior pages to life under the Marvel MAX banner where Ennis has consistently pushed the character to his darkest extremes.