The Agency #4

Paul Jenkins and Kyle Hotz bring their offbeat Top Cow series to its fourth issue with a cover that's hard to look away from — three striking women fill the composition, from a dark-haired figure smoking in the foreground to a glamorous blonde in black opera gloves and a scrappier brunette with a utility belt, all set against a crackling storm of orange energy spheres and jagged lightning. The cover's self-aware warning ("This issue contains some REALLY perverse...uh...STUFF") signals that The Agency isn't taking itself too seriously, even as Hotz's detailed linework gives the scene genuine edge. "Electric Avenue" promises the kind of charged, irreverent storytelling this series has been delivering since 2001.