The Spectre #51

Tom Mandrake's cover for this March 1997 issue delivers an arresting image: a grinning, green-cloaked Spectre looms over the Gotham cityscape, wielding an oversized mallet stamped with the Batman symbol, while a caped Batman crouches in the foreground below him. The contrast between the Spectre's wild, daisy-adorned menace and Batman's steely composure makes for a genuinely striking visual tension. John Ostrander and Mandrake's long-running collaboration on this series hit its stride with pairings like this, and "A Savage Innocence" promises another compelling chapter.