The Nice House on the Lake #3

Álvaro Martínez Bueno's cover for Book Three sets an immediately unsettling tone: a lone figure in glasses and a grey sweatshirt stands at the glass doors of a sleek, modern lakehouse, a strange glowing light emanating from their chest, while dozens of dead birds litter the ground at their feet and vivid red splatters streak the windows behind them. The quiet domesticity of the interior — soft furniture, dim lamps — makes the carnage outside feel all the more wrong. James Tynion IV's DC Black Label series continues to be one of 2021's most quietly dread-soaked reads, and this issue's cover promises that the horror lurking beneath the surface hasn't finished rising.