Shade, the Changing Man #50

This milestone fiftieth issue of DC Vertigo's Shade, the Changing Man arrives subtitled "Loves, Labors…Lost," the sixth chapter of the "A Season in Hell" arc by Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo, and Mark Buckingham. Duncan Fegredo's painted cover is quietly devastating — two figures drawn into an intimate, tender kiss, one crowned with an unearthly luminous glow, their hands interlaced against a swirling, dreamlike background scattered with fallen autumn leaves. It's a hauntingly beautiful image that captures the emotional register this series does so well: passion and loss bound together in the same fragile moment.