Sweet Tooth: The Return #5

The penultimate chapter of Jeff Lemire's haunting six-part series arrives with one of its most unsettling images yet: three mechanical pods, their glowing red viewports each imprisoning a different captive — Gus the deer-boy, a child, and an elephant — suspended in a jagged, cave-like void. Lemire's scratchy, expressive linework and José Villarrubia's sickly red-and-yellow palette give the scene a dreamlike dread that's entirely unique to this DC Black Label series. With only one issue left after this, the tension couldn't feel more contained — or more ready to crack open.