COVER STORIES for 04/02/2006
COVER STORIES INSTALLMENT #47
Welcome to this 47th edition of "Cover Stories," in which I look at a number of comics covers with a common theme!
This week, Cover Stories presents a group of Foreign Edition covers... and there are no Superman appearances here!
Here's a cover from Atlantic Serien, a Swedish edition, and as you can see, it's the 1979 volume, issue 7, featuring the Fantastic Four (or, as they say, "Fantastiska Fyran"), with the Thing vs. the Incredible Hulk, art by John Buscema from Fantastic Four 112. Presumably, this issue was reprinted in this volume, and I'm guessing a number of other features, given the apparent 68 pages in this book... but since no other feature is mentioned. Looking at the cover of the next issue, it's likely that issue 113 was included as well.
Now we go on to an Italian Captain America comic, this being issue 111, and featuring a Jack Kirby cover from The Invaders #5. This issue also featured Luke Cage, Power Man from issue #33 of his book, and Champions from #5 of their book. This was a 1977 edition of this book, which did print Cap solo stories originally!
Next, here's another Swedish reprint volume, "Dracula," reprinting a Gil Kane cover from Tomb of Dracula 10, featuring the introduction of Blade, Vampire Hunter! Unfortunately, that's all the info I have on this book.
Time for another Italian edition... this time, we're going back to the FF... well, in this case, it's I Fantastici Quattro, with a cover that, frankly, looks like a bad tracing of a Kirby drawing. This was a 52-page book that reprinted Fantastic Four #1 and #2, with some other features. Starting with issue #2, they used the classic Kirby covers, rest assured!
OK, had enough Marvel foreign editions? Here's Gigant, featuring a pair of Flashes! This title, which I have no infrormation on, reprinted all sorts of DC features... well, actually, one issue had the Batman/Hulk crossover! But this book had 100 pages per issue, and it must've been cool as heck! This Neal Adams cover was reprinted from Flash 215, and I'd imagine that issue, among other features, was presented in this issue of Gigant.
OK, back to Marvel foreign editions... here's a Nick Fury cover, featuring artwork by Jim Steranko. I believe the image came from a Strange Tales issue's splash page, because I can't find a cover with that image... maybe I could identify which issue it came from if Marvel comes out with an Essential Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD series! So far as I know, this may have been the only issue of this foreign edition.
Here's a bizarre combination of cover features... One one-half, there's Hergé, who I believe is best known for Tintin, and on the other side, Spider-Man (or, as they say here, Spindeln). This series featured a variety of Marvel features through the course of the title. The cover image for this issue was adapted from Amazing Spider-Man 95, by John Romita.
And finally... another DC foreign edition... and what a mix of features here! Jack Kirby's Kamandi, Joe Simon's Prez, and Kong, DC's 1970s caveman character! The Kamandi portion of the cover came from Kamandi #8, the Kong image came from the cover of Kong the Untamed #5 by Dave Wenzel, and the Prez image came from Prez #2 by Jerry Grandetti. Presumably, those were the features reprinted in this book!
Join me next time for another installment of "Cover Stories," and in the meantime, you can check out my blog at http://waffyjon.blogspot.com for other musings and ramblings by me, or email me with comments about this column at !
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