Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #52

Part three of the sweeping thirteen-part "City at War" saga, this October 1992 Mirage Publishing issue drops readers right into the chaos with a cover by A. C. Farley that's an absolute tangle of action — all four Turtles caught in a massive street brawl against a swarm of robed Foot Clan soldiers, robotic enemies, and white-armored warriors beneath a city street sign. The sheer density of combatants sprawling across cars and crashing into one another gives the scene a kinetic, almost overwhelming energy that signals just how high the stakes have climbed. With the writing team of Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and Jim Lawson driving the story and Lawson's interior art inked by Keith Aiken, this is the original Mirage TMNT series operating at full throttle.