Wonder Woman #1 is a really strong image. You gotta love a woman on horse back with a lasso leading a charge into a machine gun nest.

The Flash cover is also awesome for its early breaking of the fourth wall. That sort of weirdness really is the essence of the Flash to me.

The Batman and Robin image may be the best drawing, but I thought that it was an homage of something else.

Finally, that Teen Titans cover. The image itself has not aged very well. However, you have got to love that line-up.

If that’s the case, then claiming that a cover is iconic because it’s homaged isn’t necessarily different from claiming it’s iconic because it’s historic.

Yeah, they’re iconic because they’re historic.

The idea that ANY of these covers would be iconic if they weren’t historic is, well, not a good one.

don’t think the idea that ‘homaged a lot’ = ‘iconic’ necessarily holds. Artists don’t necessarily homage a cover because of its own composition, or its particular rendering of its subject. They can do so for a number of other reasons, including relevance to the story in their own comic, historic relevance, or simply for a joke. I suspect that, for a number of these #1 issues, they are homaged because of their historial relevance at least as much as for their iconic status.

They’re historical relevance is exactly what MAKES them iconic. Iconic does not necessarily mean great rendering or great composition. It means a whole host of things, including historical relevance, recognizability, and being homaged a lot regardless of reason. It doesn’t matter WHY a cover is homaged a lot, just the fact that it is.

If that’s the case, then claiming that a cover is iconic because it’s homaged isn’t necessarily different from claiming it’s iconic because it’s historic.

Having said that, I can see arguments for the Batman and Flash covers being iconic. Titans and WW are respectively generic and forgettable, I’m afraid. Having said that, I think that yesterday’s Sandman cover was iconic simply because it represented how Sandman covers generally looked.

But of them all, if I have to choose, I’ll go with the Flash.

What the crap?!

I know what you mean Andrew. Every time I look at my copy of that I forget it’s supposed to be that way. For the first instance the thought “that sucks… it’s all marked up” goes through my mind. Then, I suddenly think, “man that is actually pretty cool”… very pop arty. Go figure…

Wonder Woman #1 is the most iconic Wonder Woman cover out there, but I’ll admit that the pickings are slim (Wonder Woman #1 is a good deal more notable than the cover for Sensation Comics #1, which is a real shame – the first cover appearance of Wonder Woman and it really doesn’t have much of a place in comic history? That’s pretty darn rough).

Funny, the Titans one doesn’t feel that iconic. As “team-rushing-towards-the-reader” covers go, it feels a bit generic. I guess it would feel more iconic to me if it had some freaky angle or something to make it stand out (like Giant-Sized X-men does).

http://www.comics.org/issue/3288/cover/4/?style=default

It really encompasses her trailblazing nature. (1943, people! That had to be an eye-catcher.) Having said that, her first appearance in Sensation, from 1941, would also do.

When I think of modern-day Wonder Woman, there’s always Perez, of course — he did a great job redefining her, post Crisis — although I think more about his writing and interior art. What cover springs to mind? Hands-down, this gorgeous image from Brian Bolland’s kickass run of WW covers (which became a poster and, I think, also a statue):

http://www.comics.org/issue/52672/cover/4/?style=default