Tangled Web: The Thousand #1

Part of Marvel's Tangled Web anthology — which puts Spider-Man's world under an unflinching microscope — this opening chapter, "The Coming of the Thousand," pairs writer Garth Ennis with artist John McCrea for what promises to be a decidedly street-level take on the wall-crawler. Glenn Fabry's painted cover sets an immediately unsettling tone: Spider-Man crouches above two sharply contrasted figures, a brooding, stubbled man in a sheepskin coat and a wide-eyed, grinning bald man clutching a fistful of cash, both of them radiating the kind of low-life energy that suggests trouble is already well underway. It's a wonderfully gritty composition that signals this arc isn't shy about the seedier corners of the Marvel universe.