Cover Story - Top 10 Silver Age Captain America Covers

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This Friday marks the premiere of Captain America: Civil War.  It’s a major event, the first Marvel film of 2016 and the launch of their 3^rd phase that will climax in the epic Infinity War two-parter.  What’s more, this is the first big, multi-hero Marvel film after Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was good but received a less than stellar reception from fans and at the box office, losing out to Jurassic World and Star Wars: Force Awakens in the year end wrap up.  There’s a lot riding on this but at the same time, Captain America has emerged to be the superhero of the 2010s, embodying the ideal of the superhero within the cultural zeitgeist in a way few others have. 

Chris Evans’ Captain America is right up there with Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Michael Keaton Batman, and Toby McGuire’s Spider-Man as the living symbol and ambassador of this whole genre.  Given that wait and circumstance, let’s celebrate this turn of events with another dive into the shallow end to get the Cover Story on the top 10 Silver Age Captain America covers.

Cover Story - Top 15 Nick Fury Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

Hello, and welcome to Cover Story: digging as little into comic books as we can. Cover Story isn’t exactly a new column around here as I’ve been doing “Top Cover” lists since August. now, I’m just giving it a name and making it an official weekly column alongside Comics Rainbow and Movie Monthly. With that said, let’s dive into this week’s cover subject: Nick Fury. 

I’ve already talked at length about Nick Fury earlier this week and how he served as Marvel’s super spy answer to James Bond, and how he’s been through numerous iterations in his 50-year history.  I’m mainly focusing on him because Spectre came out this week, and I’m a sucker for topicality. At the same time, Nick Fury’s various covers feature work by some of the greatest artists in comic book history, including Jim Steranko, a towering legend of the medium and concept artist for Indiana Jones. So let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Nick Fury covers. 

Comics Rainbow - Nick Fury

So, this Friday marks the return of James Bond to cinemas everywhere.  It’s probably going to be a big deal as director Sam Mendes, the man who brought back widespread audience interest in the Bond franchise.  Additionally it’s starting to look more and more likely that Daniel Craig won’t be sticking with the franchise for much longer so this will probably be the last chances audiences get to see a Bond who can actually do his own stunts.  

Add on top of all that the increasing return to golden age Bond formula with the reemergence of Spectre as villains and Christoph Waltz playing some kind of Bloefeld esc villain and it’s promising to be a memorable blockbuster, especially after Skyfall gripped the world in Bond-mania and made more than double the box office take as its predecessor.  With all that considered I was going to do a Comics Rainbow about James Bond but James Bond doesn’t really have a comic book presence. 

For most of his career the adaptation rights have flittered from one limbo to another while his more adult nature as a character has kept his adventures out of the standard comic book audience.  Remember, for most of the medium’s history comics were made for kids.  However, I’m still getting in on the Bond fun with the next best character: Nick Fury.  Though he debuted in a brief lived Marvel war comic in 1963, Nick Fury didn’t find a mainstream audience till 1965, when he was resurrected as a James Bond/Man from U.N.C.L.E. esc cold war spy.  This was right around the time spies were catching on as a major popular trend so it makes sense Marvel would want to ride that cultural phenomenon.  Since then the Marvel universe super spy has been through a plethora of reimaginings and revitalizations and this is your full spectrum look at all of them; shades, shames, successes and all.