Ten best comic book covers
These are, I think, the 10 Best Comic Book Covers "of all time" (as they say). I couldn't find my favorite Love & Rockets cover online (where is it? Argh!), or that certainly would have made the cut.

Click the issue title for a larger image.

1. Supergirl #4 (1973)


While the mod scenesters of 1973 are grooving the night away on their plaid sofas, Supergirl laments, "What's the good of being a Supergirl...if I can't even get a date." Instead of showing up stag, or flying, you know, to another planet, where the crimson virus has killed all the girls, Supergirl elects to sit mere feet from a window, when she could just as well be spying on the party from a thousand miles away, and through a brick wall. It's just creepy. And then there's a kitten who showed up from nowhere to lick her hand. "Maybe you'll be my date, little kitten," Supergirl probably says on page three. Anyway, for all the wrong reasons, this is the greatest comic book cover ever made.

2. New Mutants #15 (1984)


Everyone I love dies (if I'm lucky), and, before I loved Supergirl, I loved Illyana Rasputin. She appeared on the cover of Exiles a couple of years ago and when I saw it I felt that same shock you feel when you stumble across an old love letter from an ex-girlfriend. Anyway, Illyana had eldritch armor and a soul sword and a demon that looked like Cerebus, but the greatest thing she ever had was gallons of ectoplasm gushing out of her eyes. I don't know how the Comics Code let them get away with this. Maybe it's too weird to be filthy. And yet it's still filthy.

3. Spooky #106 (1968)


Spooky has always been one of my favorite characters; he is, as the cover proclaims, a "tuff little ghost." But there are some things that even the hardened undead heart of Spooky recoils from in terror. Dirty hippies.

4. Adventure Comics #392 (1970)


This works on so many levels. It's like a private school where the uniform is a Supergirl uniform (actually, they're all in college, so I'm not a bad person). What kind of college enforces its spirit-day type events in such a draconian fashion? Anyway, it looks like Linda's about to get punished, probably by having each of the 13 fake Supergirls spank her in turn. But they might deduce her secret identity when they hurt their hands on her steel-hard Kryptonian buttocks! How are you going to get out of this one, Supergirl?

5. Archie #50 (1951)


There's some kind of joke on the cover, but who cares. This is my all-time second-favorite image of Betty. Look at the way her skirt, falling off the edge of the couch, makes her look like she's melting. And I won't even go into the counterintuitive things her torso is doing. I should probably shut up now.

6. Hulk #161 (1973)

I really like monsters, and Hulk in the '70s used to battle some cool ones, usually by fist pummeling or by picking one up by his feet and hurling him like a hammer. But none of those fights were as visceral as this one, with the Beast (looking larger than usual) wrapped around the Hulk like a constrictor. Frankly, Beast doesn't have a chance and that man's going to die, but the background is completely superfluous here, and teh two figures are all that matter. This one image is probably the best fight scene of the '70s.

7. Fear #20 (1974)


I once got into a controversy over the cover, and whether Gil Kane penciled it or not; I said he did, samgrrrl looked it up and said he didn't, and I felt the fool. Well, comics.org says he did, so I am now vindicated. Anyway, this is just the King Kong shot with a vampire instead of an ape, which I admit should be a step down, but the vampire's body language is so expressive: he's simultaneously balancing on a narrow ledge and recoiling (hisssss) from a spotlight, while holding the girl in such a way that he might be threatening to drop her and may just be cradling her. I read this issue, and I don't think this scene appears in it, so I don't actually know what's supposed to be going on, dropping or cradling. "Is he man or monster or both?" Wow, Marvel really was running out of ideas by 1974.


8. Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #53 (1960)


Oh, I dig this scene, all right. The punctum here is not Veronica on the throne but rather Betty's ponytail which, you will perceive, is inked with a beautiful thick tapering line, with finer lines for the details.

9. Richie Rich Profits #1 (1974)


I went and found this issue, and the story is pretty innocuous, but the cover is a delight. Richie's implication that Mr. Rich is not the first victim of Monster Cola, and the fact that Mr. Rich was apparently relaxing with a nice soda in a vault stocked with money, are both pretty funny, but the best part is the monster himself, still dressed to the nines, his face a rictus of hate, seizing his throat in an attempt to choke himself before he swallows more of this horrible substance. Also, it looks like Richie Rich is about to die.

10. Pep #157 (1962)


This cover is factually inaccurate, as this is not what Venus actually looks like, but hey, it's only a comic. What I like about this cover is Jughead cringing away from physical contact even though he's hermetically sealed in a space suit. Also the flying Venusian girls.

Now other people should make their own lists.