The Last Days of Animal Man #1

Brian Bolland's cover for this first issue of the six-part miniseries delivers an unsettling image: a skeletal Animal Man — his orange-and-blue costume still intact, jacket and yellow-tinted goggles in place — strides forward surrounded by the bleached skeletons of animals ranging from a rhinoceros to a giraffe to smaller creatures, with a dark, insectoid figure lurking to the right. The imagery sets a genuinely haunting tone for Gerry Conway's story, suggesting a hero whose connection to the animal kingdom may be fraying in the most dire of ways. With Chris Batista and Dave Meikis handling interior art, this 2009 DC miniseries looks like a thoughtful, atmospheric chapter in Buddy Baker's long history.