Sonic the Hedgehog #220

Rain-soaked and wide-eyed, Sonic stares directly at the reader with a look of stunned disbelief, his face splashed with water and the cover's bold accusation — "BETRAYED!" — hanging above him like a thunderclap. The single word balloon, "YOU!?!", makes it bracingly clear that someone close has caught him off guard in the worst way. Archie's long-running series was clearly in fine dramatic form in 2011, and this close-up cover delivers an emotional gut-punch that's hard to walk past on a shelf.