The Shadow #20

The cloaked, gun-wielding figure of the Shadow steps through a massive Soviet hammer-and-sickle flag on Alex Ross's atmospheric cover for issue #20, smoke curling at his feet as a shaft of light breaks dramatically behind him. The deep crimson and stark black palette gives the whole composition a genuinely chilling Cold War tension that pulls you in immediately. With Chris Roberson writing and Giovanni Timpano on art, this Dynamite series continues to find compelling new territory for one of pulp fiction's most enduring figures.