The Unwritten: Apocalypse #4

The Unwritten: Apocalypse was already one of Vertigo's most ambitious series by 2014, and this fourth issue arrives with a cover that stops you cold. Yuko Shimizu's artwork depicts a bare-chested, shaven-headed figure whose face and scalp erupt in flame-like streams of blood, while a cluster of golden arrows pierces his torso — an image of suffering rendered with almost ritualistic gravity. Mike Carey and Peter Gross bring the "War Stories" arc to its third and final chapter, promising the kind of mythologically charged storytelling that defines this run.