Shade, the Changing Man #54

Peter Milligan, Mark Buckingham, and Rick Bryant's Shade, the Changing Man reaches issue #54 with a cover by Duncan Fegredo that's as disorienting as the series itself — a figure lies sprawled and seemingly unconscious, surrounded by a chaotic swirl of numbered footprint diagrams, scattered pills, coins, and splattered red droplets against a fractured black-and-white backdrop. The issue's title, "Floored," feels entirely earned by that image, while the interior story carries the intriguing subtitle "The Perpetual Motion Machine." DC's Vertigo imprint was producing some of its most adventurous work in 1994, and this painterly, unsettling cover is a fine reminder of why this series stood apart.