Marvel Flipside

What The--?! Cover: January

Gotta love Wolverine-- he's always good for a "what the--?!" moment. Case in point, his cover this month:

from Wolverine: The Best There Is #2 (2011) by Gabriele Dell'Otto

I just like all the colorful balls in here, as if Madcap and Wolverine are battling it out in a bounce house or Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. And with eyeball-popping violence happening at the same time, the incongruity is enough to truly make you shout "what the?!" when taking in the picture.

This is exciting for another reason-- why hasn't anyone thought of pairing off these two before?! The villain Madcap has a healing factor even greater than that of Wolverine, and (since Wolverine has been seen regenerating from energy blasts that seared away flesh from bone) that's saying something. Think of Madcap as a real-life Looney Tune -- and of course a Looney Tune can't exist in real life, making him a truly insane character. Villainously, anarchistically, insane. This is a match made in heaven! You know, if heaven is a place for gratuitous violence.

What The--?! Cover: December

Okay, so did anyone else see this cover and go "What The--?!"

No? So I'm the only one that glanced and thought the red of Tigra's hat/hair blended too well with the Hulk's shorts and made him look like he got dumped out of the chimney without any pants on?

Okay, just me I guess. It's still the What The--?! cover this month.

What The--?! Cover: November

The mini-story here is that I was scrolling through Marvel.com's catalogue to peruse the covers of this month, and one by one I'm remarking: "cool," "meh," "hm. nice," "no," "sigh," and then, pretty much literally, "What the--?!" when I got to Deadpool Max (2010) #2,  cover by Kyle Baker. This was incredibly out of place to the point where I feel it should be "racked" with other books and left out of the visual field with the rest of them. 

While I often had a hard time Ed McGuinness, as I expressed yesterday, I often don't have a hard time with Kyle Baker. However, Baker always felt like he belonged to a class of his own, and seemed to always work well on his own terms. I'm sure that that is why he was asked to do a cover for something so… uh, "Max!" as this comic is supposed to be so "funny" and "mature readers" at the same time. Marvel, if you want to publish this kind of stuff, that's your right, but do it with some class… keep your brands to themselves.

I mean, really? The pose, the costume, the suggestive pose, the … marks on knees!? Pushing the boundaries might be fine, but at what point does "pushing the boundary" actually "cross the line?" 'Cause I hate to tell ya, but the line is over *there,* dude, behind you.

What The--?! Cover: October

And finally... when October is bringing you vampires, Tombs of Terror, and the prospect of more Shadowland tie-ins, there is this ray of hope, a beacon to delight your sensibilities and tickle your smiling muscles. Whether you love him or hate him (perhaps ESPECIALLY if you hate him,) you are sure to get a kick out of this month's "What The?!" Cover--

Deadpool #28 by David Johnson and Jason Pearson

And yes, the pun was intended.

What The--?! Cover: September

Okay, NO ONE saw this cover and thought it would be awkward? Should we really stage the composition so the giant hammer has its shaft extending outward between the hero's legs? Really?

I'm usually quite dense about these things and fail to recognize most subtext that is along these lines, but if this was blatant to me, then I think this definitely deserves a WHAT THE?! award!

Thor: For Asgard #1, cover by Simone Bianchi

What The--?! Cover: August

It just hit me. There's only one more month of summer. Sigh. In the meantime, let me stop the watching of DVDs and playing PS3s to get to what's really important-- laughing at crazy Marvel covers.

The What The--?! category is for anything that seems weird, funny, or simply, purely fun. This cover certainly qualifies, although I'll admit the Super Hero Squad show itself can be hit or miss for me.

Super Hero Squad #8, cover by Leonel Alexis Castellani, on sale August 11

  But should we really laugh at the growing obesity epidemic (no pun intended) with our nation's children? Perhaps if we use such physical condition as the source of derisive humor, that will make the children feel bad about themselves and stop being so chubby! Problem solved!

What The--?! Cover July

This month has two What The--?! covers, although they are kind of related. Are you ready to say What The--?! ... well, how's this:

See? I told you.It's Avengers #1 Blank Cover Second Printing Variant, cover art by, uhm, well, you know. This is also a variation on the BLANK COVER variant for this month's X-Men #1. This happened fairly recently in a different way, with Fantastic Four 574, featuring four images of the Fantastics that HAD ALREADY BEEN DRAWN for four separate variant covers and merely compiled one more time in a team shot and called a variant cover. It's lazy, it's doing nothing to further Marvel comics as art, and it panders to a collectors mentality that is largely unhealthy as the main focus of a business model.

This, my friends, is an incentive cover designed to entice collectors to buy them. Here's the gimmick for this gimmick cover-- there is no gimmick. Heck, there's no cover at all, in my opinion. Please, collectors, stop thinking that this is a rare thing that you should buy. If we ignore them, they go away.

What The--?! Cover: January

S.W.O.R.D. #3, Cover by John Cassaday, on sale Jan. 13.

It's a dragon, surrounded by flames, WITH GUNS! This time the What The--?! category skews toward the crazy-cool. The only thing cooler would be if he was holding the guns at that funky 45 degree angle. 

I think the picture is made more ironic due to the recent attitude of said dragon to be morose, brooding, and downright emo for the past year or so, ever since Kitty Pryde died. (I've heard Chris Claremont has been feeling the same way, too.)

What The--?! Marvel Cover: December

I was a little sad that there wasn't more eye-catchingly outrageous and/or amusing and/or Just Plain Fun covers this month. Well, outside of the regular standbys, that is. (There's a nice Skottie Young picture for X-Babies #3, for example. Ah, Skottie. Thanks, man!)

 

But if I have to pick (and I guess have to) a comic, this one certainly made me go "what the--?!" when I looked at Nova's expression here. It's MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #18, cover by Niko Henrichon, on sale Dec. 9.  Why do I picture Neil Patrick Harris under the helmet saying stuff like "Suit up!" and "It's going to be LEGEN-- wait for it-- DARY!"

See, Nova? This is why no one was taking you seriously and you had to get all pointy with your costume.

What The--?! Marvel Cover: November

Ah, not too many What The--?! covers this month. Maybe November is too serious? Winter is coming up, Thanksgiving makes us too maudlin, and the reality of the first quarter of the term starts to settle in... What we need is a crazy offbeat comic book cover.

 

Ah, that'll do. Amazing Spider-Man #611, cover by Skottie Young, on sale Nov. 11. Obviously, there's a crazy amount of pockets, the crazy Deadpool smiley, and the fact that this is a Spider-Man comic, not one of the many Deadpool series floating around. But the craziest thing? The comic will apparently feature Lady Stilt-Man. Sweet.