Non-representative Covers, or how to mislead comics fans....

Jeff of Earth-J January 22, 2012 at 9:35am

I no longer have this comic book in my collection (but, hey, I got 15 cents in trade for it!) or I would post the editorial verbatim, but notice the cover blurb at the bottom. A scene such as the one depicted on the cover came nowhere close to appearing in the story, and the letters page sparked a debate about deceptive covers. I don't know that real story behind this cover, whether it was by design or DDD. Perhaps we'll find out in an upcoming MMW.

Mr. Silver Age January 22, 2012 at 10:46am

There were a LOT of deceptive DC covers back in the day, owing to the fact that the cover was created first in many cases and then a story was written about it. In some cases, the story had better images for the cover than the one that it was built from. That wasn't exactly deceptive, but it weakened the idea.

The legendary Mopee story in Flash was one of those. A little elf is revealed to be the source of Flash's powers and he's going to take them away for good is a much stronger image than Flash needing to raise a few bucks to rebuy the chemicals. But the cover was built and then they came up with the story idea.

There were others where the cover was thrown in as a one-panel throwaway because the story involved something else but had to shoehorn in the cover image. This MIS cover is one panel on an alien's table as people rush past it to do something else involved with the plot, as I remember.

And there were a lot in the early 1970s when the comic was published with reprinted interiors when the creators missed the deadline but the cover was already done. I learned quickly to always leaf through the comic to make sure the interior went with the cover and wasn't just a reprint. (That problem ultimately led to Jim Shooter taking over and getting the trains to run on time).

A recent deceptive cover was First Wave #1, which showed Batman, Doc Savage and the Spirit teaming up. But because the story was written in that hip and happening deconstructed style (in which the story is actually written to be read as a TPB not as individual comics issues), Batman never showed up nor is he even referred to in the story.

DC could probably sell more copies of many comics if they put Batman on the cover of issues he doesn't appear in.

-- MSA

Mr. Silver Age January 22, 2012 at 10:59am

DC sometimes would do symbolic or representational covers that didn't actually show a scene from inside but kind of summed up the problem. Marvel seldom did those, which might have led some fans to expect a gigantic Dr. Doom was attacking the FF in this issue.

-- MSA

Kirk G January 22, 2012 at 12:31pm

Actually, that was one of my very first FF's that I got in a lot...and I WAS expecting a giant robot at some point to scale the city.

I was also pretty confused why there was a fifth member of the FF with a walkie-talkie around the Thing all the time.

So, you've hit on a really good example, but also one of my most favorite symbolic covers.

Chris Fluit January 22, 2012 at 2:51pm

There's a difference between a symbolic cover and a misleading one, though I can understand how someone would be unintentionally misled by a symbolic cover.

Kirk G January 22, 2012 at 7:10pm

Jeff-J,

Let us hope that SOMEONE has access to this Cap and the falcon #152 so that we may all benefit from a transcription of the important message about the cover image.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueler? Anyone?

Jeff of Earth-J January 23, 2012 at 8:44am

Heh. That’s what I was hinting at when I said I would transcribe it if I had it. This topic came up once before on the old board and, at the time, I checked to see if it was in stock at my LCS, but sadly it was not.

Dave Blanchard January 23, 2012 at 10:44am

Superman # 170 had one of the biggest cheat covers ever. It makes you think you're gonna get an Imaginary Story where Lex marries Lara and gives birth to Kal-El (who doesn't look a thing like his father, making you wonder if Lara had been still seeing Jor-El on the side, without Lex knowing it) -- but the story itself isn't an Imaginary Tale at all, but one of Lex's more far-fetched schemes to travel backward in time to romance Lara. The cover scene is just Lex fancifully wondering what might happen if he does indeed marry Lara, which never happens.

Mr. Silver Age January 25, 2012 at 11:11am

I've never been able to figure out what happened there. Was the cover copy actually in place when they made up the story and they *forgot* it said that, or did they forget what the story was when they wrote the cover copy. I've got to think it was the latter, as if Mort had assigned it as an Imaginary Story to match the cover, the writer would've remembered that from the first panel on. It's a pretty bizarre thing to happen.

It still confuses to this day--DC's editor included it in the selection of Imaginary Story covers he used to fill 1/3-ad spaces in the Greatest Imaginary Stories collection (for which I wrote the intro). If I'd seen it in advance, I could've told him the cover copy was a hoax because the situation was closer to a dream and not at all an Imaginary Story..

-- MSA

Kirk G January 25, 2012 at 11:20am

Proof that some of these reprint editors haven't even read the stories they are sellecting for the "greatest" collections?

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Non-representative Covers, or how to mislead comics fans....

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