I should say, however, that I have one regret regarding Fear Itself #3: it was only 22 story pages. And, after seeing what this team is capable of concocting, I would love to get more from them. Now, sadly, Ill have to wait one whole month to see Thor and Steve Rogers join the fight.

Paired with Sean Phillips, whose delicate, vintage style recalls poster art of the '50s, Ed Brubaker has made Criminal one of the best crime series in existence in large part because of the way he and Phillips have played with the genre's own nostalgia. Reconfiguring the clichs and tropes of crime lit's most celebrated era, Brubaker and Phillips have crafted something that's simultaneously reverential and refreshingly different, a series that looks forward and backward at once.