by Clyde Hall and Jarrod Jones. Undercover is our opportunity to lovingly gaze upon gorgeous works from magnificent artists. From the new ‘Lois Lane’ variant by Sana Takeda to Jenny Frison’s monstrous take on ‘Something is Killing the Children’, here are the covers we love the most this week.
Lois Lane #3 by Sana Takeda. (DC)
CH: Her eyes are tired, weary. Yet, you could still lose yourself in them and follow Lois Lane on some perilous lost cause. She’s championed them before and prevailed, the Saint Joan of Loose Cannons. Sana Takeda’s variant for Lois Lane #3 captures the charisma of our veteran ace reporter in a manner reminiscent of the 1916 Silence poster from World War I.
The cautionary propaganda painting by an unknown artist features an Amazon warrior cautioning against shared operational details and gossip during wartime. Her armor is a patriotic flourish of national colors. In Takeda’s cover art, the flag is supplanted by Lois’s defensive armor: Her journal, stuffed with sticky notes and undoubtedly filled with revealing and uncomfortable truths. If the bygone warrior carries a sword, it’s countered by Lois’s pen, the sharp metal stabby kind.
It may be an unusual stance for a modern journalist to assume, but loose lips could sink more than just ships in the shadowy conspiracies Lois has penetrated in her title. She might be shushing a walking soundbite-weaver toeing the party line because Lois is simply too tired for such yammering. Or maybe she’s cautioning a fellow traveler that now’s not the moment for speaking plainly. Either way, Takeda’s portrait convinces.
Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium #1 by Ryan Sook. (DC)
CH: Here’s a scene the assembled Legion of Super-Heroes faithful can identify with. A shattered futuristic wasteland ravaged, razed and ruined. Abandoned in place, it’s nearly devoid of life. Just like DC’s ongoing tales of young heroes in the 31st Century. A lone figure abides, braced against the cold winds of cataclysmic indifference, a muffler whipping about her neck. She endures a protracted, nightmarish landscape with no sign of hope. No expectation of rescue. Just like Legion fandom.
Teases and peeks don’t count, don’t dare bring them up. Doomsday Clock left a sobering image of an unraveled, deleted future with issue #11. Where have all the good sentients gone? Where are all the flight ring-wearing gods? We need these heroes. (Sing along!)
And then she looks. Up, in the sky. Ryan Sook lights the long night with a splash of light, a flare apexes and now descends. Its illumination, framed by leeward buildings, creates a makeshift ‘L’. Dawn has arrived. Our wait is over. The Legion lives. May it enjoy a long and successful new lease on life.
Something is Killing the Children #1 by Jenny Frison. (BOOM! Studios)
JJ: There’s a panic in the quiet town of Archer’s Peak. The fragile kind, the kind that make fathers weep and keep mothers awake at night. Where curfews are implemented by overwhelmed public officials and are at times ignored by the brazen fools who dare to venture into the night against all better judgment. There’s something in the idyllic woods of Archer’s Peak and it’s killing the children.
It takes a monster to kill a monster. Someone who lost their innocence long ago and doesn’t give a good goddamn about their own hide. Enter: Erica Slaughter, the golden-locked hardass of James Tynion & Werther Dell’Edera’s new horror title. And to commemorate her entry into the scenic wilds of Archer’s Peak, Jenny Frison’s variant for BOOM’s Something is Killing the Children goes for the up-close-and-yes-it’s-personal portrait of a monster doing her good work.
Frison did not come to play. She puts hate in Slaughter’s eyes, a red, seething force, the last thing monsters see before she rends limbs from torsos and sends those creatures back to the hells from whence they came. The way she brandishes her machete screams discipline. She’s saying something, following up the success of a bloody blow by telegraphing an ancient language to the fell beast faintly reflected in its steel. They’re about to die, yes, and when they go back to their dark masters they’ll know to tell them that it was Erica Slaughter who sent them there.
Archer’s Peak will sleep easier tonight, perhaps.
Don’t forget to share your favorite covers from this week in the comments section below!
