Doug: Hey, back again today with another genre of comic book covers! Today we're interested in a little help in identifying comic book covers where the logo was not in its usual form. Instead, the editors and artists chose to a) let it become a part of the cover scene, b) just plain different, or c) destroyed altogether. Below are a few nominees -- and they are few. You won't find the usual dozen or so that we usually show -- nope, that's your job today!
Doug: By the way, if you've never see the X-Men cover above, that is an unused version crafted by Neal Adams. From what I know, Stan Lee rejected it because the bound figures obscured the magazine's logo. Pfah! I say -- it's way better than the published version!
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I love that alternate, unpublished cover to X-men #56! It's reprinted in the Neal Adams X-men Visionaries book.
Otherwise, the only one I can think of right away is the cover to
X-men #135, which is an homage to the published cover of #56.
Edo's mentioned the one that first came to mind - X-Men #135. When I first saw that cover I thought wow, that's looks fantastic but I didn't know it was a homage to a previous cover. Modern comics play around with the logo quite a bit - moving it around the page etc.
Spectacular Spider-Man #66 with Electro fighting Spidey in Times Square, where the logo is a neon sign.
'Spectacular Spider-Man' #72 by Ed Hannigan is the first that comes to mind:
http://www.comics.org/issue/36849/cover/4/
Just like yesterday, after overlooking such favorite characters like Howard and Man-Thing, I now feel red-faced for not immediately remembering one of the most iconic of these types of covers. To wit:
Thor #337e
Here's a great Spider-Man cover where the logo gets caught up in the action, by Walt Simonson, from ASM#222:
http://www.comics.org/issue/35800/cover/4/
This might not be what Doug had in mind, but I always liked it when the cover incorporated the logo into the dialogue. Such as this cover, from 'Spectacular Spider-Man #59:
http://www.comics.org/issue/35750/cover/4/
And here's Rom #21:
http://www.comics.org/issue/35574/cover/4/
My friends and I always made of point of saying Rom's name loudly when reading the text on that cover.
Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider Man had a habit of playing with the logo. As others have mentioned 59,66, and 72... there were also issues 69, 70, and 77 that had skewed or modified logos. I like 70 where the title appears through the eyes of the mask. And 77 where the logo and corner box get slashed.
Byrne's FF 258 and 270, and John Totleben's covers for Swamp Thing 25 and 26. Somewhat suprisingly though, nothing from that era by Miller or Sienkiewicz sprang to mind.
Of course, this is Eisner territory, so if you consider Spirit splash pages to be covers - to the comic section - there are some real beauties....
Promethea played around with the tile logo - and cover format generally - with every issue. Although that may be getting a bit too modern for BAB;)...
-sean
But y'know-- with the eye of an editor, that original cover for X-Men 56 does have a big "first glance" problem, which is certainly accidental: the bound figures make "X-MEN" look an awful lot like "X-MAS" as the eye casually passes over it. Sort of the opposite of what you want to have happen on the spinner rack, yes?
Hey, Incredible Hulk #109 (which we've mentioned recently) is TOTALLY my favorite in this category! And it's great that a couple of years or so down the road a cleaner version of this logo was officially adopted, which then stuck around for quite some time.
HB
Uncanny Xmas!
-sean
Isn't there another X-Men cover with a similar motif of the characters bound to the title? Because I know I have never seen that before, but it looks familiar.
Maybe it was New Teen Titans and not X-Men?
Bronze Age Babies! Help me out!
Osvaldo, sorry, I can't think of any covers like that. I even went and browsed through a few indexes of X-men and New Teen Titans covers and couldn't find anything. I did, however, run across another X-men cover that fits today's category: X-men #176
Dr. O, is it maybe Fantastic Four #280 by Byrne? The FF are not bound to the title but to the word "Hate".
I thought that was very similar to the Adams design.
Funnily enough, I thought Osvaldo might have been thinking of an FF cover, but I had 232 in mind for some reason. No clever use of the logo, but a similar composition, sort of. But that's a much better call, Martinex.
-sean
Yeah, FF #280 is quite similar to Adams' X-men cover.
By the way, since Doug posted several Silver Age covers, I think the the excellent cover of Aquamen #42 by Nick Cardy fits the bill quite nicely.
Yes! That's it! I own that issue.
I knew I could count on you guys!
I can think of a few post-Bronze Age covers:
Amazing Spider-Man 328, in which Spider-Man smashes the Hulk through the logo.
Spider-Man (1990) 3, in which the logo is upside-down.
Incredible Hulk 372 has a big rip in the logo.
Incredible Hulk 379 has the faces of Banner and the different Hulk incarnations incorporated into the logo.
DC did a month of covers (Feb 2002) in which the title was incorporated into the cover art; see Orion 21, Batman Gotham Adventures 45.
- Mike Loughlin
That Hulk Annual cover is one of my top ten favorites all time. It's the focus of a post at the Dojo just today in fact.
Rip Off
I can think of 25 such covers--because I was preparing them for a post! Ah, well. :) I'll just say that, given the number of times it was wrecked, it looks like the X-Men really, really dislike their masthead.
This type of thing was practically perfected by Will Eisner in the pages of 'The Spirit'. I have to say that Ed Hannigan did a lot of this type of thing (pun intended) that was faithful to the Golden Age esthetics but with a colorful twist. Great stuff from a great designer and artist.
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