The Agency #5

Kyle Hotz's cover for this 2002 Top Cow/Image thriller sets a gritty, atmospheric tone — a tough woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips stands armed and ready in a dark alleyway, while beside her a gaunt, snarling figure crackles with glowing blue energy, and a menacing cat with luminous yellow eyes lurks in the shadows behind them. The tagline says it all: "The Agency has just become the prey." Paul Jenkins and Hotz deliver the kind of shadowy, tension-soaked espionage horror that makes "Number One with a Bullet" sound like exactly the right title for this moment.