The Guardians of Metropolis #2

Part two of DC's four-issue miniseries throws readers straight into the spectacle, with cover pencils by Kieron Dwyer and inks by Karl Kesel framing a genuinely unsettling circus-cage brawl between the Guardian and the feral Lupek, the Wolverine Man. A grinning, top-hatted ringmaster in the foreground gleefully promises the crowd that "all blood spilled here today will be real," while a pale-faced clown looks on from behind the bars — pure 1994 DC atmosphere at its most entertainingly sinister. With Kesel, Dwyer, and Manley on the creative team, "Donovan's Circus" looks like a wild, pulpy ride through Metropolis's stranger corners.