Scalped #52

Part two of the five-part "Knuckle Up" arc arrives in this October 2011 installment of Vertigo's gritty reservation crime series, with a cover by Jock that says everything without showing a face. A lone silhouetted figure — braided hair, broad shoulders, bullet-riddled vest — stands dead center against a stark red-and-white striped background while two guns are leveled at them from either side, the tension almost unbearable. Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra's Scalped rarely lets its protagonist breathe, and this cover makes that suffocatingly clear.