The Punisher #9

Part one of "Taxi Wars" arrives in this 2002 Marvel Knights series, with a cover by Tim Bradstreet that places Frank Castle in what looks like a subway station — close, cold-eyed, and gripping a pistol as he stares straight at the viewer. The fluorescent-lit platform stretching behind him only deepens the sense of urban menace that Bradstreet renders so effectively. Tom Peyer and Manuel Gutierrez's series is clearly in no mood for subtlety, and that ribbon emblem on the cover gives this particular issue a quiet, time-stamped gravity.