Spawn #49

Spawn #49 pulls no punches with a cover by Greg Capullo and Danny Miki that plunges the hellspawn headlong into a maelstrom of writhing, organic chaos — his costume shredding outward in jagged white tendrils while a massive, fang-filled maw looms from the swirling red darkness behind him. That single glowing green eye at the center of the composition gives the whole image an eerie, focused intensity amid all the surrounding carnage. With Todd McFarlane writing and "Helter Skelter" as the story title, this May 1996 issue promises exactly the kind of visceral, supernatural tension that made this series a cornerstone of Image Comics.