Sheriff of Babylon #11

Tom King and Mitch Gerads's acclaimed Vertigo crime series reaches its penultimate chapter with this haunting issue, "Chocolate." The cover by John Paul Leon captures two figures locked in a desperate embrace — blood visible on their clothing — while armed soldiers move through the shadows below, an image that distills the series' tension between human connection and the surrounding violence. Military Times called it "a gritty window into a confusing time in a violent place," and this December 2016 issue makes a compelling case for exactly that.