The Invisibles #7

Part three of the "Arcadia" arc finds Grant Morrison, Jill Thompson, and Dennis Cramer's boundary-pushing Vertigo series in quietly haunting territory — and Sean Phillips's cover sets the mood perfectly. Two hands grip a bloodied blade together, while a vivid red rose and its falling petals provide the only color against an otherwise stark, desaturated composition. The interplay of tenderness and violence in that single image captures exactly the kind of unsettling beauty that made The Invisibles one of 1995's most talked-about mature-readers titles.