The Walking Dead #14

Few images in 2004 comics capture dread as efficiently as this one — a bloodied, limp hand releasing a pistol onto a prison floor, iron cell bars casting long shadows across the scene. The stark minimalism from cover artists Tony Moore says everything and nothing at once, leaving the circumstances of that open, crimson-flecked palm tantalizingly unresolved. Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Cliff Rathburn continue their unflinching series here, and this cover makes clear the prison setting has lost none of its menace.