S.H.I.E.L.D. #1

Marvel's Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division steps into its own series with this 2015 launch from writer Mark Waid and artist Carlos Pacheco. Julian Totino Tedesco's cover painting pulls you right in — a determined agent in a suit raises his gun at the foreground while two armed women take aim behind him, a small monkey perched on his shoulder adding an unexpected touch of personality, and a ghostly crowd of Marvel heroes looms in the blue-tinged background. It's a confident, atmospheric opening image that signals a series where capable agents hold the line between an everyday world and an extraordinary one.