Tangent Comics / The Joker's Wild #1

Tangent Comics reimagined the DC universe from scratch in 1998, and this inaugural issue of The Joker's Wild makes a striking first impression. Joe Phillips and Jasen Rodriguez's cover features the Joker — a grinning, green-haired woman in a vivid red-and-blue costume — tumbling through a swirling pink vortex, surrounded by three playing cards each bearing her own impish face in different expressions. With Karl Kesel and Tom Simmons at the helm and the story "B-B-B-Blackout!" waiting inside, this is a wonderfully offbeat entry in DC's alternate-universe experiment.