A Cover a Day

[Steve W]

Ok, how about this for an idea.  We take it in turns to post a favourite (British spelling) comic cover every day.  This went really well on the comic fan website that I used to frequent.  What we tried to do was find a theme or subject and follow that, until we all got bored with that theme.  I'd like to propose a theme of letters of the alphabet. So, for the remainder of October (only 5 days) and all of November, we post comic cover pictures associated with the letter "A".  Then in December, we post covers pertaining to the letter "B".  The association to the letter can be as tenuous as you want it to be. For example I could post a cover from "Adventure Comics" or "Amazing Spider Man".  However Spider Man covers can also be posted when we're on the letter "S".  Adventure Comic covers could also be posted when we're on the letter "L" if they depict the Legion of Super Heroes.  So, no real hard, fast rules - in fact the cleverer the interpretation of the letter, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

And it's not written in stone that we have to post a cover every day. There may be some days when no cover gets posted. There's nothing wrong with this, it just demonstrates that we all have lives to lead.

If everyone's in agreement I'd like to kick this off with one of my favourite Action Comic covers, from January 1967. Curt Swan really excelled himself here.

[Philip Portelli]

In the Silver Age, many people had the power of "super-exposition" but few had it combined with "super-stating-the-obvious"!

Richard Willis said:

Odd that they wouldn't just say "Superman's turned into a dragon" and leave out the bit about the red cape.

Dave Palmer said:

I remember seeing this advertised but I don't think I ever had the opportunity to actually read the story.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Superman and an ersatz Fantastic Four or the Fantastic Four and an ersatz Superman?

[Steve W]

Fascinating  Jeff of Earth-J 2 ! Which of those two issues came out first?

Here's another first. First appearance of Supergirl on a cover. Action #252.

[Steve W]

Superman's first 80 page Giant from 1964.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

“Which of those two issues came out first?”

Fantastic Four #249 came out first.

John Byrne had some ideas about how Superman’s powers worked even before he went on to revamp Superman in 1986. Since Gladiator is something of an ersatz Superman to begin with, Byrne first worked out his theories at Marvel. When he went to DC he had the opportunity to work on the “real steel deal,” and when he decided to flip the cover, he used four members of the Legion of Super-Heroes as stand-ins for the FF. (With Elastic Lad out of continuity post-Crisis, Brainiac 5 is Mr. Fantastic’s counterpart by virtue of their respective brainpower.)

[Dave Palmer]

This is a recreation by Steve Rude.  He was probably just a little over two years old when the original came out.

Steve W said:

Fascinating  Jeff of Earth-J 2 ! Which of those two issues came out first?

Here's another first. First appearance of Supergirl on a cover. Action #252.

[Steve W]

The new adventures of Superman #233. All Kryptonite destroyed and Clark starts working for a TV station.

[Richard Willis]

I knew that the faces, especially Supergirl's, looked wrong.

Dave Palmer said:

This is a recreation by Steve Rude.  He was probably just a little over two years old when the original came out.

Steve W said:

Fascinating  Jeff of Earth-J 2 ! Which of those two issues came out first?

Here's another first. First appearance of Supergirl on a cover. Action #252.

[3]

Superman's first big anniversary cover at 10 years -

[Richard Willis]

[Jeff of Earth-J]

“The Adventures of Superboy When He was a Man?!”

In case anyone was wondering who owns the color separations for this cover… it’s me. I own them.

I also own the color seps for this cover:

[Dave Palmer]

From #19 to #275 Superman was featured on the cover of every issue of Action Comics.  However, #276 breaks that string.  Well, kind of.  Do we have zero Supermans or seventeen?  Also, as almost an afterthought, Supergirl joins the LSH in this issue.