The Flash #7

Francis Manapul's cover for this May 2012 New 52 entry says it all: the Flash is sprawled and straining across a shattered icescape, with a towering, frost-armored Captain Cold looming above him and a woman caught in the frozen chaos nearby. The tagline — "To stop Captain Cold… a sacrifice must be made!" — sets a genuinely tense, high-stakes mood before you've even opened the cover. With Manapul and Brian Buccellato sharing both the writing and art duties on "Into the Light," this is the New 52 Flash run firing on all cylinders.