By Jarrod Jones. Undercover is our opportunity to lovingly gaze upon gorgeous works from magnificent artists. Each week, we single out the most striking covers that grace comic book stands and gush all over them.
What are the covers that float your boat this week? We want to know! Tell us about them in the comments below, and the best response gets a DoomRocket sticker/button combo sent to their door. Get to it!
Power Man and Iron Fist #1, by Sanford Greene. (Marvel Comics)
It would be enough to know that Power Man and Iron Fist is this week’s biggest must-buy comic book. But then Marvel had to go and let Sanford Greene go crazy all over the cover to its debut issue. Greene gives us a facefull of utterly cool posturing from the Heroes For Hire by employing a vivid forced perspective from the street level up. Look at Danny’s fist. It’s almost as if they’re asking if we wanna make somethin’ of it. Well, maybe we do, Danny & Luke. Maybe we do.
Archie #6, by Marguerite Sauvage. (Archie Comics)
One of the coolest parts of the Archie Comics reboot is that some of the best artists in the industry now have carte blanche to lovingly render some of the most iconic characters in comics. The results have been stupendous. Case in point: Marguerite Sauvage’s cover to Archie #6, an image that displays the animosities between Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge in about the most straight-foward way imaginable (it’s simple, really; Veronica’s petty. Petty to the max.) With just enough malice hidden beneath Ms. Lodge’s glinting eyes, Sauvage’s creepy/funny cover might just be the best visualization of Ronnie I’ve ever seen.
Clean Room #5, by Jenny Frison. (Vertigo)
I can see it now: Creepy ‘Clean’: The Cover Art of Jenny Frison, a 100-page art book featuring every single patently unsettling (but objectively gorgeous) Clean Room cover Jenny Frison ever committed to publication. Hm? What’s that? “Clean Room is only five issues into its run,” you say? Well, then. Let me let you in on a fundamental truth: so long as Jenny Frison’s covers adorn Gail Simone and Jon Davis-Hunt’s Clean Room, there isn’t going to be much that could stop Vertigo’s coolest book from reaching issue #100. Now get somebody to start templating this anthology straight away. We can wait. (Oh, and as a sidenote, doesn’t Astrid kinda look like Anne Hathaway here?)
Star Wars #16, by Terry & Rachel Dodson. (Marvel Comics)
Y’know. I’ve never known a Rebel to take any prisoners. Think about it: Star Wars, Empire, Jedi… when were the Rebels ever caught rounding up a group of Imperials for detainment and (presumably) justice? (And don’t say “Endor” neither; you know those creepy Ewoks slaughtered and ate every last one of Palpatine’s men at the end of Jedi. Go back and watch it again. The clues are there for your scrutiny.) And yet, when I look at Terry and Rachel Dodson’s sleek and marvelous cover to Star Wars #16 — the first issue of the series’ latest arc, “Rebel Jail” — I put such thoughts to rest. Because even if I’ve never seen such a thing up until now, I’m seeing it now… and it’s gorgeous.
And that’s it! Don’t forget to share your favorite covers from this week’s releases in the comments section below!
