The Shadow #5

Part five of "Shadows and Light" arrives in December 1987, and Bill Sienkiewicz's cover makes an immediate impression — the Shadow, dressed in black with his signature hat, surges upward through a crushing wave of grasping, desperate figures bathed in deep crimson. The composition conveys a man fighting against overwhelming odds, surrounded on all sides yet refusing to be swallowed by the chaos. Andy Helfer and Sienkiewicz's mature-readers series continues to push the boundaries of what a pulp hero's world can look like on the comics page.