CSBG Archive
The Top 50 Most Memorable Covers of the Marvel Age Master List
You all voted for the most memorable Marvel covers from the past 50 years (since Fantastic Four #1 came out, the beginning of the “Marvel Age”) and here are your results for the Top 50 covers that you deemed to be the most memorable of the Marvel Age (some signs of a memorable cover is the cover being homaged a lot or being featured on posters, licensed products and histories of certain comic book characters)! This is a master list of #50-1 for those who missed the initial countdown last week.
Enjoy!
50. Captain America Annual #8
(Art by Mike Zeck and John Beatty)
49. New X-Men #114
(Art by Frank Quitely and Tim Townsend)
48. Silver Surfer #1
(Art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott)
47. Journey into Mystery #83
(Art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott)
46. Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars #8
(Art by Mike Zeck and John Beatty)
45. Marvel Graphic Novel: The Death of Captain Marvel
(Art by Jim Starlin)
44. Amazing Spider-Man #252
(Art by Ron Frenz and Klaus Janson)
43. Daredevil #182
(Art by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson)
42. Amazing Spider-Man #121
(Art by John Romita)
41. The Incredible Hulk #181
(Art by Herb Trimpe)
40. Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21
(Art by John Romita)
39. Fantastic Four #49
(Art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott)
38. Amazing Spider-Man #122
(Art by John Romita)
37. Infinity Gauntlet #1
(Art by George Perez)
36. Marvels #1
(Art by Alex Ross)
35. Amazing Spider-Man #300
(Art by Todd McFarlane)
34. Fantastic Four #48
(Art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott)
33. X-Men #138
(Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin)
32. Fantastic Four #51
(Art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott)
31. X-Men #100
(Art by Dave Cockrum)
30. Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars #1
(Art by Mike Zeck and John Beatty)
29. X-Men #135
(Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin)
28. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1
(Art by Jim Steranko)
27. Silver Surfer #4
(Art by John Buscema and perhaps Sal Buscema)
26. Spider-Man #1
(Art by Todd McFarlane)
25. The Incredible Hulk Special #1
(Art by Jim Steranko (with a little help from Marie Severin))
24. The Incredible Hulk #1
(Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos)
23. Iron Man #128
(Art by Bob Layton)
22. Amazing Spider-Man #1
(Art by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko)
21. X-Men (Volume 2) #1
(Art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams)
20 Incredible Hulk #340
(Art by Todd McFarlane)
19. Daredevil #181
(Art by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson)
18. X-Men #136
(Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin)
17. Amazing Spider-Man #33
(Art by Steve Ditko)
16. Amazing Spider-Man #129
(Art by Gil Kane and John Romita)
15. Uncanny X-Men #142
(Art by Terry Austin)
14. X-Men #101
(Art by Dave Cockrum)
13. Avengers #57
(Art by John Buscema and possibly George Klein)
12. X-Men #137
(Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin)
11. X-Men (Volume 1) #1
(Art by Jack Kirby and perhaps Paul Reinman?)
10. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4
(Art by Jim Steranko)
9. Amazing Spider-Man #39
(Art by John Romita)
8. Thor #337
(Art by Walter Simonson)
7. Avengers #4.
(Art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos)
6. Wolverine (mini-series) #1
(Art by Frank Miller and Joe Rubinstein)
5. Amazing Spider-Man #50
(Art by John Romita and possibly Mike Esposito)
4. X-Men #141
(Art by John Byrne and Terry Austin)
3. Giant-Size X-Men #1
(Art by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum)
2. Fantastic Four #1
(Art by Jack Kirby and a mystery inker)
1. Amazing Fantasy #15
(Art by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko)
18 Comments
Jon Yeager
December 28, 2011 at 8:08 am
“It’s time for the THING to take a hand!”
*TAKE* a hand? That’s pretty gruesome, right there.
GenghisFrog
December 28, 2011 at 9:39 am
It’s awesome that all you have to do is read the cover to Fantastic Four #1 and you already know who the characters are and what powers they have just like that.
Toby Kernan
December 28, 2011 at 11:04 am
Ah, I feel so nostalgic now. #38 was the first comic to ever catch my eye, on a grocery store revolving rack. I bought it and an issue of Marvel Two-In-One, and have been a comic lovin’ geek for over thirty years now. Good stuff.
RAGGEDT
December 28, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Interesting that Spider-Man (solo) and X-Men tie with most covers each — 12. Also, Wolverine is featured prominently on four covers — but in only one of them is he star of the book!
Bill K
December 29, 2011 at 6:56 am
Re FF#1 , I love how “Together for the first time in one mighty magazine” suggests these are characters that have appeared individually in other magazines that you may potentially have seen. (Like the characters in Justice League of America were). And even makes the first-time reader think maybe they should recognise them from elsewhere, and feel uninformed if/that they don’t!
I love the cover, but since it’s a time-honoured tradition to apply modern sensibilities of logic to cultural artifacts that never aspired to abide by them, I’ll ask about the ropes: did the giant monster tangle Reed up in them, or did he manage that himself? Neither seems extremely plausible
So how about a survey one day of Most Memorable Opening Splash Pages?
sammie bullock
December 29, 2011 at 10:25 am
You can’t go wrong with any of these.
Raul P
December 29, 2011 at 1:27 pm
@ RAGGEDT I count Wolverine as a prominent element on six covers: CAPTAIN AMERICA 8, HULKL 181, HULK 340, X-MEN 142, WOLVERINE LS 1 and X-MEN 141. He is on 15 covers in all, same as Spider-Man.
Raul P
December 29, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Sorry, correction: Spider-Man is on 16 covers.
Raul P
December 29, 2011 at 4:08 pm
A note about HULK 340: it was inked by Bob Wiacek.
Dave B
January 3, 2012 at 7:29 am
A lot of these are great, but I’d really like to replace at least a dozen. I can’t believe Secret Wars #4 isn’t on here. I’m not a big Hulk fan, but that was an awesome cover.
Also, I’m not much of a Nick Fury fan, and to be honest, I’d never seen this particular cover before, but #28 (Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1) is great. It’s so 60′s!
Ike Iszany
January 3, 2012 at 10:10 am
Why have ASM 252 and Secret Wars 8? They’re both notable for the same thing, the black costume. Technically Secret Wars 8 is apretty crappy cover.
Ike Iszany
January 3, 2012 at 10:17 am
In fact by time Secret Wars 8 came out Spider-man had been wearing the black costume for like 6 months. By the time Secret Wars 8 came out the suit may have been revealed to be a symbiote and was taking it’s first steps towards becoming Venom. Secret Wars 8 is redundant.
Dave B
January 3, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Ike Iszany, I completely agree with you about Secret Wars 8. The art is actually not very good (Spider-Man is OK, though not very dynamic, but the characters in the background aren’t well drawn), and I also think that both it and ASM 252 are on there for the “debut” of the black costume.
Mike O
January 3, 2012 at 7:51 pm
The secret wars ones are a little disapointing. If I had to pick one #10 was the best.
http://media.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/15614/secretwars10.jpg
Dave B
January 4, 2012 at 2:58 am
Yes #10 is the other one that I was thinking would make the list.
Accursed Arachnid
February 21, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Why is it this cover never makes these lists?
http://www.samruby.com/AmazingSpider-ManC/Large/AmazingSpider-Man238.jpg
It’s my #1 favorite cover of all time! When I saw the (badly colored)preview of this cover in ASM #237, it became the longest month of my entire life waiting for this issue to come out!
Dave B
February 22, 2012 at 3:56 am
Yeah, that is a pretty cool over. Very dramatic.
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