The Outsiders #14

The Outsiders #14 from December 1986 puts team member Looker front and center — literally behind bars, chained and declaring "I was framed!" in a cover that immediately raises the stakes for DC's scrappiest superhero squad. Jim Aparo's crisp linework sells both her defiant frustration and the grim reality of those prison bars, while a circular inset of a wide-eyed Halo reacting to her new braces adds a disarming note of teen-hero humor to the drama. Mike W. Barr and Aparo keep the tone perfectly balanced between genuine tension and the kind of offbeat personality that made The Outsiders such a distinctive corner of the mid-'80s DC universe.