The Authority: Revolution #4

Ed Brubaker, Dustin Nguyen, and Richard Friend's The Authority: Revolution hits its fourth chapter with a cover that assembles the full team in striking fashion — a brooding, red-eyed figure smoking a cigarette dominates the foreground, while a luminous energy-powered figure, a sleek white-armored woman hefting a massive weapon, a dark-clad fighter, a black-haired woman in tactical gear, and a ghostly, glowing being with swirling arcane markings round out the ensemble behind him. Nguyen's cover art gives the group a cool, almost cinematic stillness that feels quietly menacing rather than loudly bombastic. Subtitled "Hard Ball," this 2005 Wildstorm issue promises the kind of sharp, politically charged superhero storytelling this series does so well.