The Transformers #65

Part four of five in the "Matrix Quest" saga, this 1990 Marvel issue puts Grimlock in a genuinely harrowing spot — the cover by Bill Sienkiewicz depicts a armored Autobot recoiling in wide-eyed alarm as an enormous, nightmare-dark creature looms over him, its gaping maw and grasping claws filling the frame with menace. The tagline asks whether Grimlock has found the Matrix — or whether it has found him — and Sienkiewicz's ink-drenched rendering makes that question feel delightfully unsettling. With Simon Furman writing and Geoff Senior on interior art, this is a chapter of the Marvel Transformers run that earns its dramatic cover in full.