The Walking Dead #44

Few covers in 2007 hit with the visceral immediacy of this one — a figure reeling backward, mouth open, as a bullet tears through their head against a blood-red background, a revolver thrust into the foreground completing the grim tableau. Charlie Adlard's stark black-and-white linework makes the violence feel raw and unsparing, the absence of color pulling every detail into sharp, unsettling focus. Robert Kirkman's series was never shy about consequence, and this cover announces that issue #44 is no place for the faint of heart.