The Shadow #24

This 24th issue of Dynamite's long-running Shadow series presents a genuinely unsettling cover by Alex Ross, rendered from a vertiginous overhead angle: the cloaked, crimson-scarfed Shadow — pistol in hand — is beset by a ring of grasping, decayed hands clawing up at him from all sides, suggesting something deeply sinister closing in. The painterly realism Ross brings to the scene gives every rotting finger and swirling cape a visceral weight that pulls you right into the danger. With interior work from writer Chris Roberson and artist Giovanni Timpano, this 2014 chapter looks like a fittingly atmospheric chapter for pulp's most enigmatic avenger.