Black Op #8

Desberg and Labiano bring their taut espionage saga to a gripping chapter with this eighth volume of Season 2. The cover sets an immediate mood in deep amber tones, showing a shadowy armed figure in the foreground against a Middle Eastern streetscape of vehicles and buildings — a visual shorthand for high-stakes covert operations in oil-rich territory. With the tagline promising CIA agents facing hundreds of millions of dollars just days before a petroleum shock, this 2014 Dargaud entry looks like precisely the kind of geopolitical thriller that keeps you reading well past midnight.