Trials of Shazam #10

Two issues from the finish line, The Trials of Shazam! #10 arrives in January 2008 with a cover tagline that says it all — "The Power Usurped!" Mauro Cascioli's painted cover depicts a fierce, white-dreadlocked figure in a dark costume bearing a lightning-bolt emblem, crouching aggressively amid shattered glass and crumbling stone against a crimson city skyline, serpentine tendrils coiling around her in a display of stolen might. Writer Judd Winick and the multi-talented Cascioli — handling pencils, inks, and colors throughout this series — bring an unmistakable sense of menace to this penultimate stretch of the twelve-issue saga.