COVER GALLERY: 2009

This year had plenty of cover work from Alex Ross. As usual, we're not going to stop on the covers for mini-series that have their own sections on this site, such as the Project Superpowers titles, Justice Society of America, Avengers/Invaders and more recently Thulsa Doom but on covers for single-issue series or alternates. Here we go!


SUPERMAN #682 - 685: The last covers Alex did for this titles were pretty fine, I specially like the one with Supes holding Pa Kent, it's really emotional and the parasite one is definitely creepy, it feels like he's going to grab you!
BATMAN #682 - 686: All of these covers are great in their composition where Alex isn't trying to encapsulate the story within it as much as he's trying to give you great iconic images like the one with Alfred or the one with Commissioner Gordon and the bat-signal. Classics!
DETECTIVE COMICS #860: This is a hard-to find, alternate cover to this issue and the image says it all. We can see Batwoman in the classic heroic pose similar to Bats himself. Great image especially if you recall that Alex designed this character's new look and suit.

ABSOLUTE JUSTICE HARDCOVER: The cover that you see in the Absolute Justice cover is a reprint from a Wizard cover, but the INNER cover is the magnificent piece of artwork you see above, 'nuff said.

ASTRO CITY - DARK AGE: BOOK 3 #1 - 4: The next installment in the Dark Age saga came with 4 issues full of very noisy covers, there are so many elements in each one and the logos cover most of the art that you can't see much. Issue 3 caught my eye with its strange blend of colors and weird 1950's style aliens from those old B-movies. It's a nice departure from the average heroic covers. I really like that one.

ASTRO CITY SPECIAL: ASTRA #1 - 2: Showing that characters in Astro City grow up and get old and die, Astra Furst who was the little girl member of the First Family in the original Astro City mini-series is now a grown up graduate and these covers are handled in a People -magazine style with inside scoops and stuff. Issue one is one of those truly great flying figures, Alex Ross does so well but issue 2 has this weird LSD-induced hallucination motif which is oddly disturbing yet pleasantly beautiful.


ASTRO CITY - THE DARK AGE BOOK ONE TPB: Now let's be clear, this trade paperback is called book 1 but is actually a compilation of book 1 AND 2 of the dark age saga. Now the cover is a really cool composite, it's the Silver Agent emerging from the flames and the 2 back to back faces resemble a human heart and just take a look at the detail on the face on the left's curly, graying hair, that's Alex Ross' attention to detail at its finest!






SPIDER-WOMAN #1: I've said this once and I'll say it again, Alex paints one HOT Spider-Woman. Wow, just look at that figure, er cover.
CAPTAIN AMERICA - REBORN #1: Minimalist approach to the return of Steve Rogers as Cap. It's like he's exploding or something, which suggest he's dying so, mixed signals are thrown left and right with this cover.
VENGEANCE OF THE MOON KNIGHT #1: Great approach with Moon Knight's suit that Mr. Ross makes in this cover, 'cause the guy's suit is white and to avoid it looking like a wedding dress, Alex shifted the lighting to make it look dark, kinda silver-grayish which greatly goes with the purple tones of the sky and clouds.
NEW MUTANTS #1: A fantastic composition of little known characters in a great combination of yellow and blue tones. If you don't know the characters, this cover makes you want to read and find out who they are.

DAREDEVIL #500: The times where you can see an Alex Ross-painted Daredevil are few and far between, and I truly like this character, and in this cover, old horn-head looks awesome and ass-kicking (literally and figuratively) yet the all red-tinted cover with no other color to support it takes back a little of its impact.
INCREDIBLE HULK #600: Now, this cover introduces the green color to an almost all red color to create an awesome contrast of colors. Fantastic cover any way you look at it.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #600: Interesting composition, a very heroic and action-packed pose by Cap, yet not knowing how the background characters are relevant to the story, takes a little impact out of it for me. Anyone care to explain who the bearded fellow in the corner is?
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600: This is a nice Spidey cover, surrounded by the danger of Dr. Octopus, yet again my complaint is the same, why the monotone hue? This cover would've been so much cooler if it weren't all-red.

THE TORCH #1 - 4: This mini-series has a similar sensitivity as Project Superpowers in which Alex is revamping Golden Age characters. Torch is the first Marvel character and Mr. Ross pays tribute to it with some iconic covers (issue 1) as well as throwbacks to previous eras (issue 3) both covers are quite striking. The other 2 covers are cool but more story-oriented than the rest. In my opinion, every time Alex paints flames in a book or cover they keep getting more realistic than before. Kudos to his art!

BUCK ROGERS #1: Alex redesigned these characters, and now they actually look like they're in the 25th century as opposed to the campy TV show. This cover is fantastic, it looks like Alex made the character's spacesuits thinking of Apple computers.
WIZARD #220: Much better than the "Reborn" cover this one shows both Caps in a cool split-screen type art which is a very rare device for Alex but it works really well to promote the fact that there are now two Captains America, Steve Rogers and his former sidekick, Bucky.

Busy year for Alex because, besides all of these covers he also did all the Project Superpowers and their spinoffs covers, as well as Thulsa Doom, Justice Society of America (in which not only did he do the covers but wrote and did interior art on one issue) and Avengers / Invaders. And let's also count the variants and sketch covers for these miniseries. We're talking more than 70 covers by my count. That's hard work. Alex is a real trooper!

Check out the previous cover galleries: 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 & 2008