Star Wars: Empire #18

The tagline "To the Last Man!" says it all — this concluding chapter of a three-part arc from Dark Horse's Star Wars: Empire series promises a battle pushed to its absolute limits. David Michael Beck's cover delivers a visceral, large-scale clash as Stormtroopers and a lone human figure in dark clothing hold their ground atop a writhing mass of alien creatures, blaster bolts slashing red across the image beneath a pale, looming moon. It's a striking visual testament to the desperate, outnumbered intensity that writer Welles Hartley and artist Davide Fabbri bring to this 2004 corner of the Star Wars galaxy.