The cover of a comic book can be a powerful thing; from iconic imagery to illustrations
that speak of much larger contexts, comics have done their fair share over the years
when it comes to influencing public perceptions.
Some stand out more than others though, having played a bigger more impactful role in history.
So today, we’re breaking down the top 10 shocking comic book covers that changed everything.
Get ready for a history lesson, friends!
A fun one, of course.
It is comics, afterall.
10 Action Comics #1 This is the comic book cover that changed
EVERYTHING in the industry of comics; the first appearance of Superman, lifting a motor
vehicle in the air as civilians nearby lose their sh*t.
It’s an iconic image, and there’s been plenty homages made to it, but it’s not
just the image that carries great meaning; it’s the context behind it.
To better understand, let’s break down the history of comics for a hot second - Superman
is often seen as the beginning of comic books, or at least the North American superhero trend.
And while that latter statement is very true, there was a whole booming art form that existed
prior to the man of steel’s debut.
Comics first emerged in newspapers in the late 1800’s, with many historians often
giving credit to Richard F Outcault and 1895’s The Yellow Kid, the first prominent comic
strip to appear in newspapers.
From then on, especially in the 1920’s, comics explored new artistic grounds, and
often were quite subversive, used witty political commentary, and were existential AF.
But that all changed with the emergence of Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster’s Superman;
this was something readers had never seen before, and while the early golden age superheroes
did pull a lot of inspiration from pulp heroes from the beginning of the 20th century, it
was something startling, innovative, and fascinating, especially during the Great Depression era.
He was a shining beacon of hope, the epitome of the American dream - the hero we all strived
to be more like.
9 The Avengers #1 Published in 1963, the Avengers issue 1, a
cover by Jack Kirby, would change the DNA of Marvel comics forever.
While DC already had already established their Justice League team three years prior (and
had superhero teams the likes of the Justice Society of America back in the 1940s), The
Avengers was Marvel’s first superhero team, and brought together many of the company’s
mainstays into one comic.
It also is the series responsible for bringing back the Golden Age hero Captain America (later
in issue 4), and it really set the stage for the kind of storytelling readers could expect
under the guidance and leadership of Stan Lee.
8 Captain America #1 The cover of Captain America issue 1 is pretty
darn famous.
Not only is it Cap’s debut, but it features the titular hero punching none other than
Hitler, square in the face.
But, at the time of its release, this was an interesting choice, and many see it as
a form of political protest from Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.
When it came out in 1941, the U.S had yet to join the war, and the full extent of the
crimes Hitler and the Nazis were committing had yet to be universally acknowledged.
But many felt that the US should have gotten involved long before Pearl Harbour, and many
comic books featured the likes of superheroes being involved in war time efforts, from fighting
nazi criminals to encouraging the sales of bonds (although the latter was more so after
the US’ was officially involved).
There was also a lot of harmful racial stereotyping, especially against the Japanese, but we’ll
leave that for another list.
7 Green Lantern/Green Arrow 85 The shocking truth about drugs!
That’s the tagline that sat atop this famous 1971 comic book cover, featuring the story
Snowbirds Don’t Fly; the infamous social commentary on the drug problem in the US.
It told the tale of Green Arrow’s ward, Speedy, becoming addicted to heroin, all as
a means to articulate that the disease of addiction does not discriminate; it can happen
to anyone.
Despite Hal Jordan being a bit of a pr*ck on the cover, it’s an incredibly effective
image, one that still resonates to this day.
It’s also worth noting that post Comics Code Authority, the censorship guidelines
that long existed in the industry from the Silver Age of comics, normally banned this
kind of content, but Marvel was making great strides in using their platform to discuss
the danger of narcotics (specifically in the Amazing Spider-Man story in which Harry Osborn
struggles with his drug addictions).
So by the time DC jumped on board with this story, much of the codes regulations had been
diluted, with it nearing its end thanks to PSA-style stories like this one.
6 Lobo #1 Long before DC’s space-faring bounty hunter
Lobo hit the scene in 1983, a smaller comics publisher called Dell Comics released this
comic, Lobo issue 1, in 1965.
Why was it a big deal?
Because it featured a black man on the cover.
And one who was in a heroic position; he was a gunslinger, and the side of the issue read
‘branded for life!
An honest man blamed for a crime he did not commit!”
It should go without saying that the US has a pretty terrible and murky history in terms
of the treatment of the african american community, and the 60s were a critical time period for
black rights.
So when Dell released this comic, it was considered controversial.
But it was important in terms of pushing away from horrible racial stereotypes in comics
and moving towards better representation.
Unfortunately, Lobo’s series would flounder after only 2 issues thanks to lack of sales.
But at least it was a start.
5 Batgirl #41 Variant This would be majorly important when it came
to the perception of how female characters in comics are depicted, or, at least pertaining
to the discussion of it - we’ve come a long way since the Women in Refrigerators movement,
but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
That whole issue really blew up and made international news when DC announced the release of this
particular variant cover for Batgirl issue 41.
It featured the Joker holding Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, hostage, with tears flooding
her eyes.
Many felt this was distasteful; it was an homage to Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke,
an iconic graphic novel in which the Joker shot Barbara Gordon (and presumably sexually
brutalized her too), inevitably paralyzed her from the waist down.
Many saw this as unnecessary; it was trauma created to further the plot of Batman and
James Gordon in the story.
Barbara, rather than being killed off entirely, was revived as a parapelgic character, fighting
crime under the guise of Oracle for years.
After the New 52, she was giving her ability to walk again, and controversy ensued.
So, by the time this cover came out, Barbara Gordon fans had a whole lot to be pissed off
about, and this cover became an object of national discussion, ultimately being recalled.
4 Astonishing X-Men #51 Representation for the LGBTQ+ community is
pretty darn lacking in comics.
Yes, it’s getting better, and there are more queer characters in the panels of maninstream
comics, but it’s still a fairly small percentage.
Instead of looking at the negative though, this number looks at the positive - this comic,
Astonishing X-Men issue 51 - marks a major moment in striving towards more representation
in the future.
It featured the first gay wedding in comics, with the wedding itself appearing on the comic’s
cover, along with a large population of the Marvel universe watching on, in attendance.
The 2012 story followed the events of the wedding between Jean Paul Beaubier (aka Northstar)
and Kyle Jinadu.
Northstar was Marvel’s first openly gay character, and the two had been dating since
2009.
In 2011, gay marriage became legal in New York, and the following year, the two were
married.
Naturally, a lot of critics (a ton of which weren’t even comic readers) let their Fredric
Wertham hang out and responded to this issue with bigoted remarks, but that didn’t stop
it from happening, and it made history.
3 The Death of Supeman Without getting into the whole ‘Death of
Superman made death irrelevant in comic books’ argument that I generally dive into when the
mere mention of this story arc comes up, (long story short, it was a terrible money grab
with greater industry implications), we’re going to talk about why this cover stirred
up so much attention from DC readers and Superman fans worldwide.
Prior to the Death of Superman story arc, DC was looking for a way to tie in an event
happening in another one of their spinoff properties; the television series Lois & Clark:
The Adventures of Superman, starring Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher.
The two titular characters were getting married in the show, and as a tie in promo in the
comics, so were their panel counterparts.
But in order to prevent the wedding from happening (because apparently superheroes can’t get
married, a ‘still running faux pas’, at least according to DC), something that to
happen.
And that was Doomsday, an alien that looks like a hulk rip off with spikes, who would
engage the man of steel in a deathmatch where they punched each other to their graves.
Or so it seemed.
In the long run, neither of them really died.
Instead, Doomsday was later proven to still be alive and Superman had simply slipped into
a Kryptonian Coma, a new invention that basically allowed him to look dead and show no vital
signs, but was really him re-energizing, as if he were a butterfly in a cocoon.
Despite all this, the image of Superman’s cape draped over a stick surrounded by rubble
was a jarring one, along with the multiple variants DC pumped out for the event, including
one that resembled a tombstone, and one that had his insignia made out of blood.
Remember, at the time, readers believed Superman had actually been killed off, which was a
bold move, but one that would be shortly reversed and cause major outrage.
And, of course, killing off superman but bringing him back would change everything in terms
of the plot device of killing off and reviving superheroes like it’s no big deal; Death
of Superman took that from an uncommon occurrence to one that EVERYBODY in the industry started
doing willy nilly.
2 Flash of Two Worlds What’s more shocking than Superman’s death?
Well, not much, except this cover, which, at the time of its release, was a REALLY big
deal, and essentially is the reason why the concept of multiverses in comics exists today.
In 1961, Carmine Infantino drew the cover for a The Flash issue 123.
On it, for the very first time ever, we saw The Flash, Barry Allen, running side by side
with Jay Garrick, the Flash of the Golden Age, who had been retired and loosely retconned
out of the DC continuity, along with a handful of other heroes from that era.
As the story goes, apparently Infantino and DC editor Julius Schwartz had this running
challenge where Infantino would try to draw the most absurd or unimaginable covers, and
Schwartz and the writers would have to come up with stories to match them.
In this case, Schwartz came up with the multiverse.
The success of this story led to DC reviving many of its Golden Age characters, introducing
the concept of two earths, which would be further expanded by the time Crisis on Infinite
Earths hit the scene in 1985.
All in all, this is the cover responsible for introducing the idea of the multiverse
not only to DC comics, but to mainstream audiences in the industry, too.
1 Crime Suspenstories #22 By today’s standards, this cover of EC’s
Crime Suspenstories is by no means controversial.
Hell, there have been a slew of homages made to it over the years from all kinds of comic
book publishers.
But at the time of its publication, back in 1954, the comic industry was about to enter
one of its darkest periods - or rather, a dark period that was sugar coated by a bunch
of PG silly and camp stories that made our beloved golden age heroes ‘acceptable’
for young readers.
Let’s backtrack a sec.
In that same year, a psychiatrist named Fredric Wertham would publish a book called The Seduction
of the Innocent.
It claimed that comics were ruining and manipulating the children of America, and while he had
no scientific evidence backing his claims up, people really bought into his ideas.
He not only took shots against DC’s staple trinity of characters, but horror comics,
and many of the genres outside of superhero works.
Now prior to that, a Senate hearing that investigated censorship in comics had begun.
One of the comics the Senate hearing focused on was a recently released and highly notorious
issue of Crime Suspenstories that featured a decapitated woman on its cover.
William Gaines, the owner of EC Comics who had single handedly revolutionized horror,
sci fi and crime genres in the medium up until that point, was questioned, and this issue
became the focal point of that questioning.
He was asked if he thought the image was in good taste.
He responded with “yes I do, for the cover of a horror comic” along with his reasoning.
But the senators were relentless, and eventually, the Comics Magazine Association was formed
along with the Comics Code Authority, a means in which publishers self-regulated their titles
to avoid government censorship.
Horror and crime comics took a big hit; they either had to censor their work, or be blacklisted
from all major distribution and sales agencies.
This pretty much destroyed EC comics, who would only be survived by a single publication
of theirs: MAD Magazine.
So all in all, this is the cover that acted as a catalyst and took center stage during
the senate hearings that would eventually establish the Comics Code Authority, which
would largely shape the histories of some of the most iconic characters, including Superman,
Batman and Wonder Woman.
And it set the stage for two eras that would abide by censorship rules, largely enforcing
the ‘low art’ or ‘immature’ misconceptions about comics for years
to come.
There we have it!