I don’t have much difficulty declaring October the greatest month in the calendar. That said, every year when it ends, there comes a cold morning in early November when I wake up to the sight of frost-tipped dead leaves floating on the smoke-tinged air, and accept that Halloween has ended, and Barbarian Month has come. It is time to put on early English Prog Rock and protometal, take some chilly walks through the woods and fields, and read Conan comics. These are the days of High adventure.
I thought I might introduce a new feature, highlighting book and comic book cover art that makes a lasting impression on me. Welcome to Hogging the Covers.
For our inaugural entry, I present The Flash (vol. 2) #131. Coverdated October 31st (Halloween, nice) 1997, this issue was written by Grant Morrison with Mark Millar, interior art by Paul Ryan (the artist, not the muppet-like stooge) and cover art by Steve Lightle, and not, as I thought for years, Joe Quesada. I didn’t know any of that when I got this issue. I got it along with two other comics, (a Spiderman featuring Morbius, and I don’ know what the other was) for my Birthday from my friend John. It was my first Flash comic, and the cover blew my mind as a kid. Seeing the Flash in wheelchair and leg cast was a nightmare revelation in that it never occurred to me before how much the character relied on his legs. He runs fast, that’s his whole thing! How did this happen? What is he gonna do? It’s a classic question mark cover, a throwback to the Flash’s long history of question mark covers. Years later I reread this story in a collection, when I discovered I was a Grant Morrison fan longer than I’d even realized. And, the story was actually still really good.
The fastest man alive is in a wheelchair. Yep. Gotta read that one.
-Max
The Cyclops Lanterns 