Some people like fine wines, aged cheese or a well-bred horse. We like comic books. The stories, the art, sometimes the ads; but most certainly the covers. Keep in mind they all pair well with greasy pizza and Mountain Dew. Take a look at our cover picks for this week:
Dave’s Pick
Night of the 1,000 Wolves #2
Dave: I liked the first issue in this series but there wasn’t a werewolf ’till the last panel. I’ll bet anyone all the money in Zuckerberg’s PayPal account that a werewolf pops up in issue #2! First off, love the fire and yet the red tincture of the wolf seems to be in flames as well in how it bleeds into the yellow. The boniness of the wolf is also creepy as hell. On top of that we got an ax wielding dude screaming his lungs out and those werewolf eyes give off a perfect sense of evil. I’d love to see this lupine beast in a movie.
Also note the cover of issue #1 above. A perfect opposite in tone to issue #2 yet it mimics the red wolf and yellow person.
Brendan: Very cool cover. I love the red/yellow contrast and I hope it’s something they run with, at least for a while. The detail on the werewolf gives him a great ferociousness. I love the way the title really stands out in the flames.
Brendan’s Pick
Shade #9 (of 12)
Brendan: I find this cover intriguing. And isn’t that the point of a comic cover? To intrigue you into picking up and flipping through the book? The warm reds and purples give off a remarkable amount detail, yet they blend away certain aspects of the pencil drawings which really adds to the mystery.
Dave: Tony Harris really shined on Ex Machina and I’m glad to see a new cover by him. The color choices are impeccable here and the skeletons are creepy as hell.
Brendan’s Honorable Mentions:
Spider-Men #1 (Variant cover)
Brendan: You may be opposed to the 616 and the Ultimate universes meeting up and shaking hands, but I have to say I’m interested. While this cover does fall into the overused category of “Seeing another world through a reflective surface” at least the execution is well done. They’re keeping a tight lip on what’s going on in this event so not much can be revealed by the cover, but it gives you the gist as best it can.
Dave: Wait… the title is Spider-Men? Isn’t Miles a teenager? This cover is a lie! Aside from the title, I’m a big fan of the costume Miles has been wearing so even at a glance I’m liking the cover. The red puddle also adds a level of menace that is intriguing.
Batgirl #10
Brendan:I like this cover because colors. There isn’t much more to it than that. The vibrant-but-not-Alex-Ross-burny prism of color just rubs me the right way. I also like the potentially non-intentional to the forever groaned-at Superboy Prime retcon punch.
Dave: Batgirl is pee-issed. The shards of glass add a nice pop to the cover and I dig the prism colors reflecting on her cape.
Star Wars: Knight Errant – Escape #1
Brendan: I did the worm monster. I dig the pose. I dig the blue lighting almost being infused with the dark side as it strikes the light saber. This is what Star Wars should be.
Dave: What makes this cover for me is the lightning on the light saber. Without that lightning the figure would be flying into that mouth and it’d look silly. Everything else, the dudes in the background, the beasty and the muddy atmosphere really make our hero pop.
American Vampire Lord Of Nightmares #1
Brendan: I’ve always been a big fan of Dustin Nguyen’s art. He continually knocks cover-art out of the park and this is another example. It amazes me what he can do with just black, white and red.
Dave: Has American Vampire had one bad cover yet? This cover has a movie poster vibe with the characters staked and I do love me that train.
Batman #10 (Variant Cover)
Brendan: There is nothing -I repeat, NOTHING- creepier than Batman smiling. It is the antithesis of his character and it is just so unnerving. The worst concept in the comic book universe is a Batman that enjoys his job. This cover displays that grim possibility and I love it for that.
Dave: The green, into blue, into Batman gives this cover a nice wavey dreamlike appearance.
Dave’s Honorable Mentions:
Captain America #13
Dave: Watch out Cap! What an awesome moment captured on the cover here. Caps face is one part realization and one part too late to turn around. The fiery background adds a nice doomsday tone as well. The work Zircher did on the hand is also commendable. Notice how Cap’s sort of feeling around with that pointer, as if he’s dazed. Nice touch.
Brendan: The characters are incredibly well done. My only gripe is the villain doesn’t have a strong grip on the shield. He’s almost holding it over his head in the way you’d carry something light. Giving the shield more weight would have added some symbolism plus giving him a really firm grip could have made him more menacing.
Planetoid #1
Dave: Survivalist SF is something I sign up for on the very utterance of “surv…” The premise is going to make you want to buy this book alone,
An ex-soldier turned space pirate, finds himself stranded on a mysterious planet in alien territory. He will have to fend off rogue mechanical creatures, roving cyborg militias, and a hostile alien military bounty on his head.
The mech beast is pretty sweet, from the size of him to the scowling face, all the way to the steampunk neck. I also love the rubble all around our protagonist.
Brendan: I like the way the robo-golem is rising from the rubble. He doesn’t seem menacing enough to be anything other than a sidekick for our haggard hero but I’m into that. I like the off-set of our main man’s fleshy pink tones compared to the cold metallics that surround him.
Incredible Hulk #9
Dave: Hulk is in Atlantis and it doesn’t look good. Not only is he in a very un-Hulk posture, limp and floating, but the bubbles appear to be diminishing. I love the green hue to everything in this cover and the color of sun reflecting Hulk is pretty.
Brendan: Sometimes Hulk just want five minutes of alone time to zone out and listen to the muffled sounds of the undulating ocean that surround him. Atlantis is Hulk’s #1 vacation destination.
Amazing Spider-Man #687
Dave: Gabriele’s work has appeared in our comic previews for weeks now and once again he’s done a spectacular job. The bloody horn, something you never seem to see with Rhino, is just graphic enough to be scary, and Rhino’s scream, with some blur on his chin, is super dramatic.
Brendan: This cover brings serious action that you aren’t always used to seeing on the front page of a comic book. There is a visceral violence that comes simply from that bloody horn and the torn spidey-suit.
Mr. Dell’Otto, I like everything you do.
WTF? Category
Where we don’t understand, are insulted by or would rather stab our eyes with acid pops than look at these covers for various reasons.
Conan the Barbarian #5
Dave: Bear with me while I enter the realm of hyper critical bastardry. This cover is pretty, painted beautifully and is exciting, BUT, and it’s a big but, why the hell is Conan so young in this cover? He’s not nearly this young in this series. Sure he’s 20 or so, but not 12. Also, the bad guys left shoulder/bicep/tricep muscles are outrageous. It looks like Mr. Hyde from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for crikey’s sake. Also Conan isn’t that pale. He ain’t Bruce Lee!
Brendan: Maybe this is a flashback and Conan went through an awkward pale phase. Maybe he spent his teenage years shoved into the barbaric equivalent of a high school locker. Maybe this comic will be 30 pages of Conan getting stone-age swirlies until he finally finds his love of murdering everything he sees and with that, his confidence.
Captain America & Hawkeye #632
Dave: Seriously Patrick… you did so well on the Captain America #13 cover! Okay so…I actually like the framing here, but dear lord, is Cap going to punch a giant snake/dragon into its open mouth? Cap, you can’t punch everything and win, okay?
Brendan: I am fully confident that Cap can punch anything and win.
Batman #10 (Regular cover)
Brendan: Here’s my problem. I like this cover a lot. I love our ab-tastic hero. I love the shadow wings. Having said that, what the fuck is this cover supposed to be depicting? I’m a few issues behind on Batman so maybe some of these things are explained, but I’m lost. Is that white egg supposed to be an owl mask? Are those wings coming from some creature or is it just symbolism? I need guidance.
Dave: I’ve been reading it and I can say it’s a tad confusing. That backdrop must be an owl’s wings. Pretty sure there hasn’t been anything done symbolically so I guess this is Batman having to deal with bad lighting.
Deadpool #56
Brendan: Deadpool fall down, go boom. That’s all I can gather from this cover. I don’t understand the rubix tower that he may have fallen from. I’m lost on time time-warp background. On top of that, the bright colors actually make it hard to discern what rogues I’m looking at within each side display. The design is kinda fun, but it isn’t intelligible.
Dave: This is one of those covers where you feel stupid for looking at it for so long. Then you realize it’s not your fault. It’s too damn busy. First you see this color tower, then you see Deadpool, then you discern the baddies. Dave Johnson is a regular choice for our favorites in our previews but this week I’m dumbfounded.
WARNING: OFFENSIVE COVER AHEAD. COVER YOUR CHILDREN’S PEEPERS.
Dicks #5
Dave: What the hell, Garth Ennis. And why the hell? Well, at least we have a comic book cover that finally lives up to our website’s namesake.
Brendan: See, this is what we want the WTF section to actually be filled with. This shit right here. But you know what? Most comic companies have enough common sense to realize that this kind of garbage belongs in the back pages of some high-school stoner’s biology notebook and not on the shelves of respectable retail establishments. But seriously, Ennis and McCrea, congrats on making Rob Liefeld look talented.
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