Red #3

The third chapter of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner's Red arrives with a cover that tells its own ruthless story in three stark panels: a bald, suited figure levels a pistol at a younger man in a brick alleyway, and the sequence unfolds panel by panel until that opponent ends up face-down in a spreading pool of blood. Hamner's green-drenched palette gives the whole thing a cold, almost nocturnal menace that suits this WildStorm espionage series perfectly. If the first two issues hooked you, this February 2004 installment makes a convincing case that the tension is only escalating.