The Amazing Spider-Man #557

Part of Marvel's "Brand New Day" era, The Amazing Spider-Man #557 brings writer Zeb Wells and artist Chris Bachalo together for a story titled "Dead of Winter." The cover — penciled by Bachalo and inked by Tim Townsend — plunges Spider-Man and a blonde woman into a harrowing confrontation with a massive, skull-adorned creature bristling with jagged straw-like spines, its skeletal claws reaching menacingly from the murky background. It's a genuinely unsettling image, with that sickly yellow atmosphere and the sense of desperate flight making this one hard to set back down.