There are at least two good things about Zatanna's costume on the cover. (Come on - *somebody* was going to say it!)
Seth | Email | 06.22.09 - 1:31 am | #

I like how the GL balloon hints at the story inside.

I got both cover artists, Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin, to sign my copy of this book.
rob! | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 4:26 am | #

Man, it takes longer to read that cover than it does to read most modern comics...
GQ | Email | 06.22.09 - 4:31 am | #

You think that's worse than the New Age costume she had in that 90s mini-series?
Joe Littrell | Email | 06.22.09 - 5:40 am | #

Without all those word balloons, one would naturally assume that the League is upset that Zatanna used her magic to turn Green Arrow's famous chili into a bunch of paper slips with her name written on them.

So I for one think the word balloons are critical to this cover.
Harvey Jerkwater | Email | 06.22.09 - 6:38 am | #

What a cruel joke on the readers who wanted a sweet-tempered young magician to join the JLA, and instead got this ponytailed Dr. Strange harridan.
Linus | 06.22.09 - 6:42 am | #

May I also point out Superman's rarely seen ability of shooting a gray light beam from his right hand. I believe that ability is to allow the cover artist to only have to not draw anyone's legs.

Oh, except one of the Atom's legs.
g23 | Email | 06.22.09 - 7:43 am | #

Geez, proofread much? Sorry that last sentence in the first paragraph should read:

"I believe that ability is to allow the cover artist to not draw anyone's legs."
g23 | Email | 06.22.09 - 7:44 am | #

I remember this as the comic where Green Arrow said "damn." My six-year-old sensibilities were shocked to their core.
Mike McGee | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 7:48 am | #

"Enihs tnod nus eht erehw pihsrebmem ruoy kcits!"

-- MrJM
MrJM | Email | 06.22.09 - 8:33 am | #

"This ain't a library, kid. You've been holding that funny book for 15 minutes. You gonna buy it or not?"

"But I'm just reading the cover."
Matthew Allison | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 8:41 am | #

How weird is it that one of those Zatanna's-costume covers you linked to is in today's Covered post?
Isaac | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 9:16 am | #

The multiple words balloons compelled me to do a photoshop job on this cover in November of 2006.

Here's the result:

http://tinyurl.com/ldjfmw
Allan | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 9:52 am | #

For history and posterity, Metamorpho was the first hero to tell the JLA to "cut out."

http://cache.coverbrowser.com/im...merica/42- 1.jpg
Snuckles | Email | 06.22.09 - 10:51 am | #

This appears to be a pattern/tradition for JLA roster change issues. While I couldn't find any with 10, I found another 9 in #117 ( http://www.comics.org/coverview....id=28422& zoom=4 ) and seven in #105 ( http://www.comics.org/coverview....id=26101& zoom=4 )
Jeff R. | Email | 06.22.09 - 12:25 pm | #

I miss word balloons and most cover copy. That's what made a lot of covers exciting, not this pin-up stuff that's so "hot" these days.

A Johns issue of the Flash around Infinite Crisis, "You Can't Stop The Top!" That one will never leave my head.

Or Amazing Spider-Man Shakespearean cover, with Venom holding Spidey's skull, updating a Hamlet quotations.

I'm generally glad when creators try new ideas and make comics that aren't traditional, but Marvel and DC's seeming hard stance against cover balloons and blurbs make me miss old comics (that is, pre-2000ish).
hardtravelinghero | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 12:57 pm | #

With all respect, hardtravelling hero, I feel the opposite about dialogue on the covers. I think that the silent pictures add to the mystery of what's really going on, making me want to check out what's happening inside the issue.

Then again, my old man used to read cover dialogue in a mocking, melodramatic voice to torment me, so that could be it as well.
adam barnett | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 1:06 pm | #

DC Superheroines always got a costume makeover and personality change after they'd slept with John Constantine for a while! Right, strewth, mates!

Be it Zatanna or a barely-legal young Donna Troy...
Anonymous | 06.22.09 - 1:34 pm | #

Oh no! A cover that makes you actually stop and pay attention to it, and think about the story inside! Sure is a good thing that we stopped doing those.

Now, a cover conveys the urgent information that Spider-Man swings by a web from a building.
Nat Gertler | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 1:56 pm | #

"Now, a cover conveys the urgent information that Spider-Man swings by a web from a building." - Nat Gertler

-- Spot on. How many repetitive covers like this do we need? Despite the "previously" page in so many Marvel comics nowadays, is Marvel still assuming every issue is someone's first? Do fanboys love what is essentially the same cover over and over? (Re: Ultimate Spider-...most of the Ultimate comics -- No, I do not hate the Ultimate Universe). Because the presentation begins with the cover.

Bless him and all, but how many wordless, blurbless Michael Turner covers do we need where the character is just standing stoical with their chest/breasts puffed out for maximum titillation?

I'm not against painted covers and pose covers altogether, but I am rarely compelled, after 15+ years of reading and having been 12 in 1993, to pick up something new based on the cover, which sure worked in the past. So is it a matter of my age and experience or a lack of creativity from the publishers?

Are cover artists challenging themselves enough these days? Is it editorial's fault we get these kinds of covers?

Oh crap, I see a comic on my table with Superman flying. What's going on in this issue? MUST...READ...NOW.
hardtravelinghero | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 2:30 pm | #

Not to distract from the rearguard action against dull covers, but can I talk about something much more important?

I can't be the only one surely who actually liked Zatanna's second costume (the Perez drawn one) over the stockings 'n magician one? Or Black Canary's eighties costume over her stockings and high heels classic costume? Trading in the sexiness and sexism for something more practical?
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 3:37 pm | #

"Do fanboys love what is essentially the same cover over and over?"

What part of comics do fanboys want any other way?
Doc Arkham | Email | 06.22.09 - 3:46 pm | #

"I remember this as the comic where Green Arrow said "damn." My six-year-old sensibilities were shocked to their core."

That was always pretty exciting as a kid. As a kid if you asked em the key difference between Marvel and DC I would tell you that in DC comics they could say "Hell" and "damn" but in Marvel's they couldn't.
Eric L | Email | 06.22.09 - 4:08 pm | #

Those early Ultimate Spider-man comic covers are all exactly the same, and were actually used out of order on the Thai versions my son has. Many of the interior pages are out of order as well. Not stapled wrongly, but laid out in the wrong order.

Strangely, it doesn't seem to affect the stories all that much.
Andrew Davison | Email | Homepage | 06.22.09 - 8:39 pm | #

From time to time over their many years of existence, Marvel makes a stupid policy decision which is meant to cut corners but ends up just being an unwise use of money. There was a period in the 1970s where they insisted that once per issues, artists take a single page, turn it sideways, draw a wide shot... and take one page payment for this two page spread. It didn't serve the story, and it caused other problems in production that made the cost worthwhile, and they ended that one after not too long.

Now, however, I hear that the goal with covers is that they need to be reusable, recyclable as posters or product art or trading cards or whatever may be. Which is understandable and all that, but to achieve that, they seem to be sacrificing having them work well as covers. It's hard to say that one builds interest beyond a vague interest in the characters, and looking at one it's damn hard to figure out if I've already bought and read that particular issue...
Nat Gertler | Email | Homepage | 06.23.09 - 7:46 am | #

I love that JLA issue!

I belive it was also reprinted on one of the "Best of the Year" DC Digests.
metalfanatic | Email | 06.23.09 - 9:54 pm | #

Ha!

Cerebus #201.

11 Balloons.

http://comics.org/coverview.lass...id=58117& zoom=4
Jeff R. | Email | 06.29.09 - 6:11 pm | #