Terror, Inc. #4

The penultimate chapter of Marvel MAX's five-part Terror, Inc. limited series arrives with a cover that's genuinely hard to look away from — a grotesque, cadaverous head suspended in a glowing green specimen jar, labeled "Homo Sapiens Terroris" in what reads as equal parts museum exhibit and dark joke. Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic's painted cover bathes the whole thing in sickly yellow-green light, giving Terror's decayed visage a queasy, almost scientific detachment that perfectly suits the MAX imprint's mature tone. With David Lapham writing and Patrick Zircher on interior art, this 2008 issue promises the kind of uncompromising, darkly absurdist storytelling that the series has built its reputation on.