This cover for X-Men #9 by Jack "King" Kirby and Chic Stone functions wonderfully as a symbolic cover, showcasing simultaneously the clash between the Mutants and the other new team at Marvel, the Avengers and the confrontation between Professor Xavier and his enemy Lucifer. The ribbon of earth and grass which separates these tableaus is impossibly thin, but symbolically vast.
In later years this cover by Herb Trimpe for The Incredible Hulk #128 again features the Avengers (albeit a different assembly) and tkes the symbolic division and seems to make it literal as Goliath punches through the floor/ceiling of ground.
And some few years later still Johnny Romita revived the image for Spidey Super Stories #8 with Spider-Man racing to face off against the Mole Man who seems to be digging his way up to the surface to take on a pop band named "The Short Circus".
Fun covers, full of wit and imagination.
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That X-Men cover stands out in my memory. I first saw it adorning the cover of British comic FANTASTIC (#18) back in the '60s. It also graced the cover of X-Men King-Sized Special #1. Brilliant stuff, Rip!
ReplyDeleteThe X-Men Special was an awesome comic book!
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There are a couple of split level Kirby Thor covers that come to mind. One is #130 that shows Thor bisected by a barrier between Olympus and Hades. And the other, a real favorite, is #138, showing trolls beneath New York pulling Don Blake from one level of the cover to another.
ReplyDeleteThat last one's a dandy, but while having the split images lacked the sense of ground I'm looking for here. More of a street thing.
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