Tattered Banners #4

The final chapter of Alan Grant and Mick McMahon's Vertigo miniseries arrives with a cover that crackles with chaotic energy — a bare-chested, wild-haired central figure holds a cigarette aloft while a green serpent coils around him, surrounded by a cast of strange, colorfully rendered characters including a blade-wielding figure and a dark-haired woman, all swirling against a fractured cityscape backdrop. McMahon's loose, expressive linework gives the whole composition a wonderfully unhinged quality that feels entirely at home under the title "The Mad God Laughing." For fans of late-'90s Vertigo at its most inventively weird, this is a satisfying send-off to a distinctly offbeat series.