Welcome to the fourth installment of Comic Book Cover-Up, where We the Nerdy writer Henry Varona weighs in on his choices for the best comic book covers coming out this week, along with some great honorable mentions! Each week, Henry explain his picks and just what makes them so darn pretty. At the end, he adds up points for each given series, which will work towards earning further accolades in the future!
Point breakdown:
- First-10 Points
- Second-7 Points
- Third- 5 Points
- Fourth and Fifth- 3 Points Each
- Still Gorgeous- 1 Point Each
So without further ado, here’s the week’s best!
5. Trillium 7 by Jeff Lemire (Featured Image)
Trillium is the tale of two star-crossed lovers in the last love story ever told. As such, it makes sense to see our main characters lying before us, dead. Their corpses, smoldering in their last moments, are so placed that they look almost calm. Sitting there, waiting for the end of the world, you sense their love for one another. This was how they ended their days. Beyond that, we have the artistic technique and styling of Jeff Lemire, who is unparalleled in his weirdness. His signature style saturates the image, making it something that any fan of his has to pick up to put on their wall.
4. Moon Knight 1 by Declan Shavley
The cover to the newest volume of Moon Knight is the plainest you’ll see next to a blank variant. Moon Knight has a simplistic white design, and Declan Shavley uses that mysterious face of Moon Knight as an icon of itself. The eyes get ALL of the attention, and they menacingly look to the reader, daring them to come in. Limiting himself to half of the page for imagery, Declan above and beyond the call for detail on the eyes, making the weathered brow and crows feet inviting yet combative. It feels silly to elect a cover like this as one of the week’s best, after all, there’s barely any there, but the design behind it and the execution is spot on.
3. Sinister Dexter 4 by Francesco Francavella
A great cover can sell you on any book, and that’s what happens here. I have never heard of Sinister Dexter, but Francesco Francavella makes me want to pick up the book to check it out. The satanic imagery is strong here, as the Devil himself seems to be eating our title characters. They scramble while in the air, helpless and desperately trying to escape, to no avail. And the yellow background filled with laughter completes the picture, as we see that the Devil hasn’t even begun torturing our heroes yet. Chilling and powerful indeed, I feel that likewise, Francavella isn’t even trying here. He’s just that good.
2. She-Hulk 2 by Kevin Wada
I’ll admit that this cover didn’t wow me out of the gate. Sure, I appreciated Kevin Wada’s artistic talents and I appreciated the choice to lay out a page with panels instead of splash. But it didn’t click with me until I sat down to review this cover. Upon further inspection, this cover manages to tell a story in itself, as She-Hulk makes it through her day. She wakes up, shaves her legs, puts on her make-up, and goes to work. Sure, she fights some dude for the last couple of panel, but I wanna stay on the second and third panels. She shaves her legs and puts on make-up. She-Hulk is proud to be a woman and will kick anybody’s butt that she has to. It’s a weird touch that maybe only resonates with me, but I greatly appreciate this touch for She-Hulk above all.
1. Magneto 1 by Paolo Rivera
Like She-Hulk, this was a cover I immediately liked but didn’t understand why. I thought it the precise cleanliness of Paolo Rivera’s figure and the bold colors used. But it’s not just that. It’s the shadow that the magnetic helmet places on Magneto, darkening his brow as if he was a Spartan warrior. It’s the bald dome of the titular character, paying homage to his late great friend Charles Xavier. And above all else, it’s the barbed wire of the helmet itself. It’s shaped form is cool in it’s own right, but when you realize that not only is it using barbed wire, but it is also evoking Holocaust imagery, it becomes elevated. Magneto has formed his identity under difficult times and is not a closed off man, protecting himself from the world. That is an incredible idea.
Still Gorgeous:
- She-Hulk 2 by Amanda Conner
- Magneto 1 (Baby) by Skottie Young
- Batwing 29 by Rafael Albequerque
- Grindhouse Doors Open at Midnight 6 by Dan Panosian
- Moon Knight 1 by Adi Granov
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