Velvet #4

Velvet Templeton takes center stage in her most glamorous and dangerous guise yet — the cover by Steve Epting presents her twice, dominating the frame in an ornate black-and-gold Venetian masquerade costume and mask, pistol raised, while a sniper's crosshair locks onto her smaller figure in the background. Ed Brubaker and Epting's Cold War spy thriller is in full swing by this fourth chapter of "Before the Living End," and that layered composition — opulence meeting lethal precision — captures exactly the kind of tension this series does so well. If you've been following Velvet's mission, this issue promises the story is far from cooling down.