Southern Bastards #17

Jason Aaron and Jason Latour's raw, unflinching crime series rolls on with "Gut Check Part Three," and this cover sets the tone perfectly. A weathered, gold-chain-wearing older man poses with a cocky finger-wag in front of a used-car lot called Lightning Auto Sales, clutching what looks like a bagged fast-food meal — the kind of guy who runs his corner of the South with effortless menace and a salesman's grin. Latour's gritty two-tone yellow palette gives the whole scene a sun-baked, Southern-fried unease that makes this one of the sharpest covers the series has delivered.