The Stand: American Nightmares #1

Three figures surge upward from a sea of grotesque, reaching forms on this striking cover — a young man at center, a dark-haired woman to his right, and a third figure behind them, all straining against the tide of what lurks below. Mike Perkins renders the tension with remarkable intensity, the fiery red sky and scattered debris amplifying the sense that civilization itself is unraveling. This first issue of the five-part American Nightmares arc brings Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's adaptation of Stephen King's epic to Marvel in 2009, with colors by Laura Martin that give the whole scene a burning, apocalyptic weight.