Velvet #5

Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's spy thriller continues with a cover that stops you cold — a white-gloved hand grips a blood-spattered knife against a pale, draped surface, the composition stripped down to something almost surgical in its tension. It's a quietly menacing image that says everything about the kind of story Velvet tells without spelling out a word. "Before the Living End Part Five" promises another taut chapter in one of 2014's most stylishly dangerous series from Image Comics.