Underworld Unleashed #2

The second chapter of DC's 1995 "Hell on Earth" event arrives with a cover by Howard Porter and Dan Green that packs an astonishing amount of hero-on-villain chaos into a single image — Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Flash, and what appears to be a grey-skinned creature are all tangled in a surge of crackling green energy, fists flying and capes whipping. Mark Waid's story, "The Devil to Pay," promises the stakes are only getting higher as DC's assembled heroes push back against whatever darkness has been unleashed upon the world. If the cover's kinetic, wall-to-wall action is any indication, this middle chapter is anything but a quiet bridge between beginning and end.