Transmetropolitan #18

Spider Jerusalem stares you down from a tattered "SPIDER JERUSALEM… WANTS YOU!" poster plastered to a grimy brick wall — a spot-on riff on the classic Uncle Sam recruitment image, complete with star-spangled top hat, wild white hair, tinted two-tone shades, a cigarette dangling from his grin, and that unmistakable pointing finger aimed right at your chest. Dave Gibbons' cover art delivers the joke with real wit and precision, capturing the gonzo journalist's gleeful contempt wrapped in patriotic iconography. Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's "Year of the Bastard" arc reaches its sixth and final chapter here, and if the cover is any indication, Spider is very much in campaign mode.