City: The Mind in the Machine #4

The fourth issue of Darby Pop and IDW's City: The Mind in the Machine puts the pressure squarely on its two leads — a wide-eyed young man with glowing blue eyes and a woman beside him who looks equally alarmed, caught between a sleek black car, an advancing tank, a military truck, and fighter jets screaming overhead against a fiery urban backdrop. That cover composition packs in a remarkable amount of kinetic chaos, making it clear this series isn't shy about raising the stakes as it heads toward its finale. At $3.99 in 2014, this is a sharp sci-fi thriller from a publisher that clearly had big ambitions for the concept of a mind wired into an entire city's surveillance grid.