Secret Avengers #8

This 2013 Marvel espionage thriller splits the cover right down the middle — on one side, a gold-visored A.I.M. helmet bearing that unmistakable yellow-and-"A." insignia; on the other, a sharp-eyed blonde in tinted aviator glasses, her expression coolly unreadable. Cover artist Nic Klein makes the juxtaposition feel genuinely loaded, hinting at the collision of covert agendas that Nick Spencer's spy-fi framework promises inside "Mission 008: The Cathedral." With Luke Ross on interior art and Matthew Wilson's colors, this series remains one of Marvel's more grounded, intrigue-driven reads of the year.