A Look at Comic Book Homage Covers

Hey remember the other day in my Action Comics article when I mentioned this issue:




What I didn’t mention was that this cover is an homage cover, harking all the way back to Superman #1 in 1940!



Comic Book covers are very important, they have to get your attention and make you want to pick up the mag and buy it. Sometimes however a cover iwll be so amazing, so memorable, and well rendered that it sparks homages. This is where the cover is bascially repeated, just with different art work and characters. These are always really cool to see and can happen across companies or by the same company, and even artist!


There are literally TONS of these out there but I did some digging and managed to find a few of my favorites. Here are some fantastic comic book cover homages:

Superman and The Flash have been racing ever since the Silver Age it seems, and every time they do the cover almost always evokes the same image











Lots of Batman one’s, and why not? Batman is as big as an icon as Superman and it only makes sense that his covers would be striking and memorable



It doesn’t have to be Batman homaging himself either, as we see here with these dual Batman/Captain America covers







Here’s a cool one comparing Wonder Woman’s first cover appearance to her (then) recent re-imagining








Another Batman one over company kines, and in fact Spawn has homaged Batman several times



Spawn has also homaged Spider-Man as well in fact that first appearance of Spider-Man has has several homages over the years.





Sometimes a cover homage is meant to elicit the same feeling the previous cover did. Here we have Batman leaving BATO and Booster Gold apparently leaving the JL





And sometimes you want the opposite feeling. The bright colorful Teen Titans cover of Terra is turned into a nightmare during the Blackest Night Event











here where we see the 80’s and modern version of the same situation playing out










There's nothing like taking the same cover concept and applying it to a new status quo:

You gotta love this one. When Superman appeared in Booster Gold, we got a cover of Superman beating him up. Only fair that when Booster appeared in Action Comics the image would get reversed.






It’s one thing when an artist homages another, but sometimes an artist which homage themselves. For instance John Byrne loves to homage his work on Fantastic Four like the above and…

this one which is odd because that image from Superman isn’t really accurate I guess Byrne just couldn’t resist.







Sometimes it’s a style that is so unusual that it deserves homaging. These covers of the Flash are unique








Some covers are so iconic that even non comic fans may be familiar with the image. The classic “Flash of Two World’s” cover has been homaged to death.

and then we have Crisis #7 with that classic pose which has been homaged over and over and over. By DC and many others, either seriously or as a parody. This image is probably the most iconic of them all, even being used for the Supergirl TV show. However Crisis #7 didn’t create the image, it just popularized it




The JLA has several homages, including the first issue of The Fantastic Four, but one of the most popular is the classic image from the 1st issue which has seen many homages.





And sometimes a cover is so cool it can’t help but be homaged by the same people who made the first one again and again and again.

Finally, we see Spider-Man homaging Superman’s original Action Comics pose. As you you may imagine that cover, being so iconic, has been homaged  to death as well including Supergirl and Superboy, Spawn, and…Popeye?


That’s it I’m going to bed.





There are TONS more but i think that’s enough for now. I didn’t even get into covers that homage pop culture! If you think I missed one that should be on here comment and let me know.