Shade, the Changing Man #23

This May 1992 installment of DC's mature-readers series presents a striking photo-collage cover by Gavin Wilson, where Shade's face emerges from a swirl of painted, serpentine forms in deep reds and browns — the boundaries between the character and the chaos around him deliberately blurred. The subtitle "an illusion of real" feels perfectly chosen for that unsettling visual, as drawn and photographic elements bleed into one another across the entire image. Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo, and Mark Pennington continue their run with part three of "Off the Road," making this a compelling chapter in one of the early '90s' most thoughtfully strange series.