Spawn: The Dark Ages #18

Spawn: The Dark Ages continues its grim medieval journey with issue #18, and Ashley Wood's painted cover sets an appropriately unsettling tone — a massive, horned-helmeted warrior looms in murky shadow, gripping a bloodied battle-axe with an air of menace that feels genuinely otherworldly. The muted, almost watercolor atmosphere Wood brings to the image perfectly suits this series' dark fantasy world, where hellspawn and swords-and-sorcery collide. With Steve Niles writing and Nat Jones on interior art, this 2000 Image title remains one of the more atmospheric corners of the Spawn universe.