Ultimate X #4

The story title says it all — Liz Allen is front and center on this cover, her blonde hair igniting with flame as she's grabbed by a hulking bully in a number-10 jersey, the school hallway lockers framing the raw, charged confrontation. Arthur Adams and Mark Roslan deliver artwork that crackles with tension, capturing both the vulnerability and barely-contained power of a young woman on the edge of something she can't control. Jeph Loeb's Ultimate X continues to explore what it means to carry an extraordinary burden in an ordinary world, and issue #4 looks like it puts that theme under serious pressure.