Superboy #22

Part of DC's New 52 line, this September 2013 issue drops Superboy into what looks like a nightmare scenario — the cover by Ken Lashley shows him straining against a mass of grotesque, tentacled creatures that have him almost completely engulfed, fist raised in desperate defiance. The taglines "Innocents Transformed!" and "To Save Them… Must He Kill Them?" give the struggle an unsettling moral weight that matches the issue's title, "High School and Other Assorted Horrors." Writer Justin Jordan and artist Gui Balbi deliver what promises to be one of the darker, more emotionally charged chapters in Superboy's New 52 run.