Showcase '94 #8

Ted McKeever's cover for this eighth issue of DC's 1994 anthology series sets an immediately unsettling tone, featuring the ventriloquist dummy Scarface — dressed in a pinstripe suit, fedora, and rose boutonnière, cigar clamped between his carved wooden teeth and a tommy gun at his side — looming in the spotlight while a goggle-eyed, wild-haired figure lurks menacingly in the shadows behind him. The story inside, written by Alan Grant and John Wagner with art by Teddy Kristiansen, promises to dig into Scarface's origins as part of DC's "Prelude to Zero Hour" lineup. It's a genuinely compelling pairing of McKeever's expressively grotesque cover work with a creative team well-suited to Batman's darker corners.