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.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"Well, someone really did die, so I guess they might win on a technicality."

I draw your attention to the blurb above: "THE DEATH OF PROFESSOR X"

"Aquaman with Quisp..."

Different Quisp, but who remembers Quisp and Quake cereals? The mascots were always in "competition"... a sort of "win-win" for the Quaker Oats company. I remember saving my boxtops for either a Quisp propellor beanie of a Quake lighted miner's helmet. Although i preferred Quisp cereal, I ordered the helmet rather than the beanie because I thought it was a better value. (I always felt kind of guilty about that.) 

[Dave Palmer]

X-Men #65 did feel like a cheat.  I don't think Professor X's faking his death was the plan at the time he died.

Alas, no doppelgangers that I remember on this cover.

I think Quisp must have been more popular since Quack underwent a "reboot".

Jeff of Earth-J said:

"Well, someone really did die, so I guess they might win on a technicality."

I draw your attention to the blurb above: "THE DEATH OF PROFESSOR X"

"Aquaman with Quisp..."

Different Quisp, but who remembers Quisp and Quake cereals? The mascots were always in "competition"... a sort of "win-win" for the Quaker Oats company. I remember saving my boxtops for either a Quisp propellor beanie of a Quake lighted miner's helmet. Although i preferred Quisp cereal, I ordered the helmet rather than the beanie because I thought it was a better value. (I always felt kind of guilty about that.) 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"I don't think Professor X's faking his death was the plan at the time he died."

Oh, no... certainly not. "Only Bucky the Ancient One dies forever!"

"I think Quisp must have been more popular since Quack underwent a 'reboot'."

Yes, Quake underwent a couple of reboots. First, he traded his miner's helmet in for a cowboy hat; later, his cereal itself changed to orange flavor. (Orange-flavored breakfast cereal. Huh!) I, for one, really liked it.

[JD DeLuzio]

Yes-- Dave: Quake went from being a miner to being a cowboy in 1969: I actually recall this commercial (a couple of videos down) that explained his transformation, as it's vitally important for breakfast cereal mascots to have backstories to their reboots. The article I've linked to also discusses Quake's disappearance from the cereal shelf.

A friend of mine owns a Quisp bobblehead. so the characters still have some vague presence in pop nostalgia.

Jeff of Earth-J said:

"Well, someone really did die, so I guess they might win on a technicality."

I draw your attention to the blurb above: "THE DEATH OF PROFESSOR X"

"Aquaman with Quisp..."

Different Quisp, but who remembers Quisp and Quake cereals? The mascots were always in "competition"... a sort of "win-win" for the Quaker Oats company. I remember saving my boxtops for either a Quisp propellor beanie of a Quake lighted miner's helmet. Although i preferred Quisp cereal, I ordered the helmet rather than the beanie because I thought it was a better value. (I always felt kind of guilty about that.) 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Wow! I actually remember some of those commercials. Thanks, JD!

[Philip Portelli]

Roy Thomas has said in interviews that he always had the Changeling (the Factor Three baddie, not the Teen Titan) as a contingency plan if he wanted to bring Professor X back. So at the time, Professor X really died but that was subject to change!

[Dave Palmer]

Interesting, although doing so fell to Denny O'Neil.

Philip Portelli said:

Roy Thomas has said in interviews that he always had the Changeling (the Factor Three baddie, not the Teen Titan) as a contingency plan if he wanted to bring Professor X back. So at the time, Professor X really died but that was subject to change!

[Steve W]

Question - could twin brothers, who suddenly surface, and who are never heard of again, be classed as doppelgangers?

[Philip Portelli]

Roy wrote X-Men #42 (Ma'68) , the Death of Professor X, and was the writer of the series until its last issue, #66 (Ma'70). Denny O'Neil did write #65 (Ja'70) but may have been following Roy's plans.

Or he followed Stan Lee's instructions as he was the editor.

Dave Palmer said:

Interesting, although doing so fell to Denny O'Neil.

Philip Portelli said:

Roy Thomas has said in interviews that he always had the Changeling (the Factor Three baddie, not the Teen Titan) as a contingency plan if he wanted to bring Professor X back. So at the time, Professor X really died but that was subject to change!

[Philip Portelli]

Supergirl keeps meeting past and future versions of herself!

[JD DeLuzio]

I thought I'd covered the Supergirl meets Supergirl covers at the start of the month, but only one of these is a repost. Supergirl appears to have met herself more often than Spider-man at the height of the clone saga.

[Dave Palmer]

A whole bunch of Supergirls