Transmetropolitan #42

Spider Jerusalem stands coolly in the foreground — shirtless beneath an open jacket, cigarette in hand, his signature two-lens shades perched on his face — while a massive, roiling mushroom cloud erupts over a city skyline behind him. The cover, penciled and inked by Matt Wagner, captures the series' signature mix of chaos and dark cool: one man utterly unbothered as the world ignites around him. Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Vertigo series is firing on all cylinders with this 2001 issue, and that image alone makes it hard to put down.