The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book Covers of All Time!

#19

Captain America #110

After nearly sixty issues of Jack Kirby Captain America covers in the silver age, a five year span, along comes this one. Totally by surprise! As a child collecting Marvel silver age off the stands, there was no other interpetation of Captain America other than Jack Kirby’s. Jack drew every cover of Tales of Suspense featuring Cap and Captain America in his own title, up to this point, with the exception of maybe one or two. In those exceptions, the covers were cloned to look like Jack’s art. This cover also showed no doubt who the villain is here. Hulk, for the first time, crossed the barrier as a Marvel Super Hero to a downright threat! It boggled my little child mind to see this cover, but one thing was clear…there was another artist who could draw Captain America very well besides Jack. Up until the time this comic was published, that artist didn’t exist. A very surreal sixties cover, with everything going for it, including Steranko doing a very fine job of showing raw emotion of fear and rage, which up until that time, didn’t really exist either. It brought in a new vision of Cap, as well as ending King Kirby’s reign of this most enduring hero.

 

The 100 Geatest Silver Age comic Book Covers of All Time!

#18

X-Men #50

Ah…Steranko again. This cover was so far ahead of it’s time, but it still didn’t help the sales of this title. Even when Neal Adams came along around eight or nine issues later, the book still went into reprints and eventually was cancelled. Steranko was constantly trying to raise the bar on Marvel comics cover art, this cover being no exception. It’s hard to describe seeing this book on the stands as a kid. I didn’t really care for the X-Men all that much, and I guess a lot of other kids didn’t either, since it’s sales at the time were so poor. But covers like this were a radical departure of what came before it, including all the lame Don Heck and Frankenstein looking monster covers, and it was indeed a head turner. It seems like comics were finally trying to grow up, and break the mold of just being fodder for children. I bought the comic for the cover alone, and I’m sure at the time 95% of the sales of this comic were due to the cover. A classic.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book Covers of All Time!

#17

Superman #233

The first Neal Adams entry, Superman 233 hit the newsstand in the early seventies. While somewhat one dimensional, Neal’s worst cover art can compare to some artist’s greatest work. This book broke a tiresome trend however. After years of lame Superman stories, it looked as if DC wanted to light the fire to it’s flagship character, assigning Neal to do future Superman and Lois Lane covers. It truly was a different look after years of Curt Swan covers. You felt big things were finally going to happen at DC, after being pounded by Marvel during the mid to late sixties. Beautiful pin up cover art that wasn’t so prevalent in the sixties as it is today.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book Covers of All Time!

#16

Avengers #57

What a beautiful and simple cover! Out of all the covers Buscema did for Marvel, this has to fall in the top three. The Vision’s anatomy is especially dead on in this rendering.  This cover may not have looked quite as striking if not for the excellent coloring scheme, but I don’t know. The art alone is gorgeous. Now this is how you introduce a new character!

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book covers of All time!

#15

Hulk King  Size Special #1

When this hit the newsstand, it was quite a surprise. I believe this is the first portrayal of a truly brutish monsterous Hulk. Every other graphic before it, he just seemed to be a pretty big built green guy. Shoot, even Rick Jones was almost as tall as he was at times. Oh, he could lift tanks and such, as Ditko showed, but he was delineated as sort of an Arnold Schwarzenegger. Up to the plate comes Steranko again, and totally opens the door to artists such as Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe to show them what this guy should look like. I couldn’t believe this cover when I saw it on the stands. There was no other graphic that could compare of the Hulk up until that time. Even the cover of Tales to Astonish #67 of a beautiful and powerful Kirby Hulk couldn’t compete with this! I couldn’t wait to get this book home. Once the book was cracked open though, the magic was gone. Some so so Severin art coupled with a Gary Friedrich go nowhere Inhumans story. Definitely a case of never judge a book by it’s cover. To this day, forty years later, it’s still the one to beat.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book Covers of All Time!

#14

Avengers #25

When I was a kid, I would buy Marvel collections when I could find them. Either from friends, want ads, flea markets, etc. This was before the big collector bang. Nowadays, you can’t find collections unless they’re bagged and boarded, crappy store stock surplus, with price stickers on them from trying to sell them somewhere else, whatever. Back then it was different. Collections would usually just be in a cardboard box, if that. You could find entire runs, usually starting from around early ‘65 or so. Most of these collections always had a book missing. Spidey #50 comes to mind, so does Avengers #9. For some reason, this one would also wind up missing once in a while. It’s a great cover. It’s hard to find a more confident looking villain on a comic book cover, and that includes the moderns. He’s damn near sneering. Low on Stan Lee’s usual over worded cover hype, the graphic says it all. Kudos to Kirby for refraining yet another tiresome Avengers battle cover. The standoff with Dr. Doom seems much more dramatic. A NM one will definitely set you back. You would have much better luck trying to find any Avengers in the twenties in grade besides this one.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book covers of All Time!

#13

House of Mystery #207

It doesn’t get any better than this! While House of Mystery #207 could be argued that it is more of a bronze age era comic, I could accept the fact that it’s on the cusp, and could you really blame me for it’s inclusion? It’s one of the most striking horror covers of all time, and that includes the EC comic covers. Berni Wrightson is a terrific artist, occasionally doing a super hero book here and there, but it’s his horror genre that attracts all the attention. In my opinion, his art took a slight dive after he did his magnus opus, Frankenstein. He even admits himself that Frankenstein took so much out of him, that his desire has waned somewhat since. His House of Mystery and House of Secrets covers for DC are true collector’s items, and to find them in decent grade takes some searching. Try to find this book in NM with white pages. Good luck. You can find tons of his Swamp Thing, but this book is elusive. Personally, I can’t understand people as nice as Berni coming up with this stuff. One of the nicest individuals you would ever want to meet, and look at the images he carries in his head. Anyway, thanks Berni. This cover was a wonder to behold when I had first seen it in the seventies, and it still carries the impact that it did back then.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book covers of All Time!

#12

Journey Into Mystery #89

It’s hard to describe covers like this when viewed for the first time. My first experience was seeing it on the cover of Marvel Tales #7 as a reprint. I hunted every used book store, rummage sale, etc. you name it, to find this book as a kid. No kid in my school owned it. Since it came out only a few years before I started collecting, I figured I would have a shot at finding it. I never did. In 1970, I went to my first comic convention, and it wasn’t there. I finally found a decent enough looking copy in the eighties, (I didn’t want a beat up one), and it was only very fine. To find this book with no imperfections on the cover is impossible. Only a handful exist at this time, and naturally, it’s a thousand dollars or more for a super nice copy. One aspect of the cover is that Kirby almost makes him look like a teenager with a very slim build. Since it was only Thor’s seventh appearance, and Kirby was just getting started on how he wanted these characters to look, it makes the book seem even more scarce. One of the earliest examples of Thor’s red cape washed against a deep blue sky. Superb.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age Comic Book Covers of All Time!

#11

Silver Surfer #4

This one is kinda self explanatory, with the notation that I never considered John Busema an exceptional cover artist. He was a workhorse at Marvel, and an exceptional storyteller. But a great cover artist? Nah. Here he proves me quite wrong, and a couple of his other covers make this list. A beautifully rendered face off, with the Surfer going in for the kill. When you find a beautiful glossy copy, this book is a site to behold. Collectors have a hard time parting with it, and I don’t blame em.

 

The 100 Greatest Silver Age comic Book covers of All Time!

#10

Tales To Astonish #98

 A superb cover that makes a bold statement! Dan Adkins, who was very underrated, and was primarily an inker, crafted this cover. He did the last few Sub-Mariner covers in the Tales to Astonish series, as well as drawing a few Subby stories. This gets my vote as the best cover in the Tales to Astonish series, heightened by a beautiful one-tone cover. Marvel only did a few of these one hued horses. X-Men #17 comes to mind, as well as Avengers #57 and Iron Man #13. Since Avengers #57 and Iron Man #13 came much later, this would probably be only the second time it was done, after X-Men #17. I wish it had been done more often. They really stand out from the run of the mill coloring jobs on some silver age covers. The color alone doesn’t make this cover though. Sub-Mariner lying in the rubble is a site to behold, and Adkins does a great job of portraying Atlantis on it’s last legs. I also feel this cover is a huge contrast to Tales to Astonish #94. It’s hard to believe they were done by the same artist. #94 actually hurts the eye it’s so bad. But like everyone, I’m sure the great silver age artists had good days as well as bad. Dan definitely gets the vote here for #98 though.