The Exterminators #20

Vertigo's The Exterminators was always willing to go somewhere unsettling, and issue #20 — part two of "Crossfire and Collateral" — delivers that promise right on its Philip Bond cover: a grotesquely oversized cockroach, red-eyed and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, clutches a green grenade while a swarm of its brethren mass ominously behind it. It's the kind of image that makes Wizard's 2007 blurb — "creepy and disturbing in the most artful sense" — feel entirely earned. Simon Oliver, Darick Robertson, and John Lucas bring their mature-readers vision to this chapter, making it a strong pick for fans who like their pest-control metaphors laced with genuine dread.