Scratch #3

Sam Kieth's five-issue DC series asks a pointed question right on the cover: "Who Protects Us From Monsters? …Another Monster!" — and the image delivers on that unsettling premise with two grotesque, drooling creatures squaring off against a large, pale, fur-tinged figure whose calm profile suggests something far stranger than human. The confrontation is rendered in Kieth's unmistakable style, with deep blues and vivid oranges giving the nighttime forest scene an eerie, otherworldly tension. Issue three of five, this 2004 installment sits squarely in the heart of the story, promising that the series' central moral puzzle is far from resolved.