Scalped #47

Against a smoldering crimson sky, Jock's cover for Scalped #47 delivers one of 2011's most arresting images: a bald eagle clutches a long-haired figure by the wrist, the man dangling helplessly — his ankles bound by a heavy chain — somewhere between earth and oblivion. It's a single image that captures the suffocating tension Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra have been building throughout this acclaimed Vertigo crime series, with "You Gotta Sin to Get Saved" now three chapters deep into its five-part arc. If you've been following the Prairie Rose Reservation's darkest corners, this issue keeps the pressure turned all the way up.