The Best Covers That haven't Been Published Yet!

Check out the cover to November's All-New Invaders #12:

That cover is by Michael Komark. The story?

"In 1917, what brought together UNION JACK, IRON FIST, and FREEDOM’S FIVE? Would you believe…invading MARTIANS?!"

Yeah, I'm all over that. FYI, if you're curious about Freedom's Five, here's their bio. That's why I love what James Robinson is doing on this book...he's taking a one-panel throwaway idea by Roy Thomas and blowing it up into it's own thing---which is exactly the same thing that Roy Thomas himself did to other throw-away long-forgotten characters/concepts.

And then there's this:

That's the cover of Constantine #19, by Juan Ferreyra. The solicit, sadly, seems to have little to do with this image--the story is something about him going to Earth-2, because I guess pulling John Constantine from Vertigo means you embroil him in stupid crossovers.

Still, that's one heck of a bitching cover!

Spoiler Sunday--#301?

I guess you know that you're in a super-hero universe when you get one of those "Stan Lee Presents"-type mini-origin boxes right above the story title:

Heck, Constantine even has one of those logo-bearing caption boxes in that DC requires in case we can't figure out who exactly is narrating at us:

I think that 's supposed to be a "C" there...the coloring isn't doing the concept any favors here.

(Of course, if the reader can't identify who is narrating, that suggests the writer and/or artist aren't doing their job too well, or that the reader is kinda dumb, so it's kind of an insulting convention. Thanks, DC!)

So, , anyway, that's our nu52 Constantine--after a tragic origin, he goes around trying to prevent others from getting too powerful. So now he's an altruistic sonuvvabitch.

Also, magic is really, really corrupting. Take this (which was in the preview published last month, so it's not much of a spoiler):

So Sargon, Zatara, Mister E, and Tannarak have set themselves up as "would-be gods" and set out on an "extinction agenda"? Yeah, because the nu52 already has too many mystical heroes, so let's turn the rest into bad guys!! (Yes, I know Tannarak was always a bad guy...I'm riffin' here! And yes, I know about Books Of Magic era Mister E. Quiet now. ) Well, at least Constantine will have super-villains to fight, right?

Of course, given the ballyhoo about moving John to the nu52, this book really has frak-all to do with the nu52. We know the writing assignments was jiggered around before the first issue even came out (Yay, DC management style!), so it's hard to know who was responsible for what, but Lemire and Fawkes are credited here, and of course they currently write JL Dark. JL Dark, which is chock full of magic users. JL Dark, in which we've never seen mentioned this theorem that magic corrupts everybody, eventually,so we should be concerned every time Zatanna opens her mouth.

Heck, JL Dark is never even mentioned in this issue, nor are any of the other nu52 mystical characters. So maybe not the best start in tying into this universe you were so eager to have Constantine join, is all I'm saying.

Still, as I tweeted earlier in the week, "If you can pretend that he's not the real JC, and ignore the damage to other DC magical characters, it's not entirely awful."