Punisher #23

Part five of "Up is Down and Black is White" arrives with a cover by Tim Bradstreet that practically radiates menace — Frank Castle stands framed in a doorway bathed in amber light, flanked on either side by two armed men raising their guns directly at the viewer. The composition turns the reader into the target, a quietly unnerving effect that Bradstreet pulls off with his signature near-photorealistic style. Garth Ennis and Leandro Fernández's MAX-era Punisher was consistently one of 2005's most unflinching reads, and this installment looks no different.