Shade, the Changing Man #39

Peter Milligan and the art team of Chris Bachalo, Scot Eaton, and Rick Bryant bring "Pond Life" to DC Vertigo's mature-readers imprint in this September 1993 installment. Bachalo's cover — both pencilled and inked by him — dominates with a striking double-exposure of Shade's face, his unsettling golden eye gleaming beneath a ghostly upper visage, while smaller figures of a young woman and man drift at the margins like half-remembered reflections in a fragmented, mirror-tiled background. It's the kind of deeply atmospheric image that captures exactly what made this series such a compelling corner of the early Vertigo lineup.