Thunderbolts #79

Thunderbolts #79 takes a striking creative detour, presenting its cover as a lads' magazine parody — complete with mock headlines about "bling-bling, booty, boxing, and bars" — while Francisco Ruiz Velasco's painted artwork centers on a young woman curled tightly on the floor, bruised and bandaged, her expression quietly defiant. The juxtaposition of the glossy magazine format against her battered, vulnerable figure makes for an unsettling and thought-provoking image that signals writer John Arcudi is taking the book somewhere raw and unconventional in 2003.