Superboy #23

The cover of this 1996 DC issue makes the stakes clear right away — Superboy and the red-maned Knockout tear through a smoke-choked, rubble-strewn battlefield against a sinister metallic robot, while a second airborne figure streaks in from above, and the bold cover question "Will they save Hawaii… or destroy it?!" hangs over everything. Tom Grummett's pencils (inked here by writer Karl Kesel) pack the composition with kinetic energy, with defeated foes scattered at the heroes' feet and an explosion-lit yellow sky lending the whole scene an almost apocalyptic urgency. Writer Kesel and the art team of Grummett and Steve Erwin deliver what looks like a story that tests its heroes to their absolute limits.