Uncanny X-Men #5

Frazer Irving's cover for this 2013 Marvel NOW! entry sets an immediately tense mood — a figure in green armor looms above with fists raised and crackling energy, while a pink-costumed mutant strains forward in the foreground and two fierce young women flank him amid bursts of fire and shadow. Bendis and Irving make for a compelling creative pairing, and the cover's bold contrast of sickly green and burning orange-red gives the whole thing a genuinely unsettling charge. A strong visual statement from a series that was clearly swinging for something ambitious right out of the gate.