Ultimate Spider-Man #123

Venom looms enormous and terrifying at the top of this cover by Stuart Immonen, his jagged grin and slashing claws bearing down on two young women who look up in wide-eyed dread — a composition that immediately conveys just how outmatched ordinary people feel against this symbiote nightmare. Brian Michael Bendis and Immonen were deep in their collaborative stride by 2008, and the cover's moody red-and-black palette gives the whole image a visceral, unsettling tension. If you're following the Ultimate Universe's take on Venom, this issue promises plenty of that creeping dread.