Team pose! Individual pose! Another team pose! ANOTHER team pose! Over and over again, most of these pieces could have been drawn at any time by any artist and nothing would have been changed at all.

It makes me miss the old Silver Age DC covers. You know, the issues where Lois Lane was about to marry a gorilla or Jimmy Olsen was hiding a bomb behind his back or the Metal Men are being sold off as a set of toys. Covers that intrigued the readers.

Not much intrigue in this bunch. My favorite cover of the bunch, art-wise? Jae Lee’s Dark Tower, by far. The cover that seemed to promise an interesting story? The Marvel Adventures/Mummy piece.

Man, that story sucked…

My top five

FF True Story (I don’t like Reed, but I love the rendition of Sue)
Skydoll
Avengers/Invaders (one of the better non-posed Ross covers I remember seeing in awhile)
Eternals
Uncanny 500 (What can I say? I’m a sucker for ‘X-Men through the ages’ or team shot covers…)

Although, with Cap now carrying a knife, I think that schoolchildren might emulate Cap and start stabbing each other.

Pick your favorite slightly snarky response!

A. Schoolchildren read Brubaker comics?

B. So you prefer the gun?

Pencils down, ladies and gentlemen.

What’s with Ultimate Captain America’s lady-lips on the Bianchi cover? He looks like Alex Rodriguez, who looks like a drag queen out of costume.

My Top Five

5 Avengers/Invaders 3 – and I don’t even lake Namor – that’s how cool this beautifully coloured cover is.

4 Iron Man: Director of Shield 31 – Adi Granov on top form is hard to beat and I love the fact that Tony looks so real here

3 Secret Invastion: Frontline 1 – it may be Skrully but, boy, it’s also classy.

2 Ms Marvel 29 – I totally appreciate why people don’t like this cover, but I can’t help myself, I think it’s hilariously and engagingly odd.

1 She Hulk 31 – although there are way too many Skrull covers, this one still totally rocks – love Shulkie hanging off the title.

My top 5 (no particular order):
Moon Knight
Spider-Girl
Jimenez’ Amazing Spider-Man (it’s definitely weird. but it also definitely catches my attention)
Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four
the Sean Murphy Hulk cover with Mummies.

Lefties don’t play shortstop and Spider-Man, as depicted here, is a lefty.

Here’s my theory – Spider-Man’s static cling only works when he is wearing thing clothing (which is why he has to take off his shoes to run up walls), so what makes more sense for him – static cling withOUT a glove or no static cling WITH a glove?

I think he’s better off going gloveless, so he’s not lefty – he’s just going without a glove!

You’re welcome, Leonard Kirk!

Especially that Criminal cover, which is the type of cover you always seem to accuse of being a nice drawing but too boring to draw the reader in (similar to the Sean Murphy Spider-Man cover).

I think Phillips adds extra flair to the cover to draw the reader in – specifically through the facial expressions and heck, the idea of the cover period.

Spider-Man hanging on the side of a roof – fine, but what you expect to see on Spider-Man covers.

Half-naked woman surprising her lover by pulling a gun on him/her – that’s unique, and not what you would normally expect to see on a cover.

Glad to see Judging Books By Their Covers is back.

I wish we had more Mummy homage covers. Mummies next, then Godzillas.

I know it’s, like, physically painful for Alex Ross to draw a comic character created after 1980, and he should be rewarded for working through adversity, but I have *no* idea what’s going on with the X-men cover.

Top Five:
Hulk Adventures
Moby Dick
Dark Tower
Fantastic Four: True STory
Son of Hulk

No, really, Hudson Hawk is a great movie.

Really. I mean it.

It is.