Swamp Thing Annual #4

This 1988 oversized annual brings together the eerie and the iconic in a cover by John Totleben that immediately commands attention: a luminous, decay-textured Swamp Thing looms from the darkness above a caped Batman, whose blue-highlighted figure reaches upward through gnarled roots and tangled undergrowth. The tension between the two figures — one creature of the shadows, one creature of the swamp — crackles with atmospheric dread that fits perfectly within DC's mature-readers line. Bissette, Broderick, and Randall deliver the interior story "Threads," with a bonus feature, "Private Lives," rounding out what is clearly a substantial package for fans of this era's darker, more literary take on DC's green guardian.