In my last article, I listed my absolute favorite gimmick covers of the 90’s, which were: Wolverine #50 (die-cut) , Uncanny X-men #304 (hologram), Amazing Spider-man #365 (hologram) , Superman Man of Steel #30 (build a cover), and of course, Superman #75 (bagged death of Superman). But the 90s were such a fun filled time for covers, that as I thought about more and more of these covers, I knew that another list was necessary to spread the word of the magical time of crazy covers. Thus, here is my NEXT five favorite gimmick covers of the 90s!
How cool is this cover! Well, it’s much cooler in person, as it glows in the dark! You can imagine my excitement finding this issue at the local grocery store. I couldn’t tell you much about the story now (apart from that Demogoblin and Morbius were involved), but with an eye catching cover like that, it was destined to be read over and over again.
Another issue I distinctly remember pulling off the grocery store shelf, there is almost no better embossed hologram cover out there. I mean, this thing is shiny! It’s like Silver Surfer is coming right at ya! It’s a killer story too, with Galactus’ past heralds having to team up to stop is current herald Morg. My copy I bought as a kid is in such rough shape from reading too many times, I had to get this again recently because I love it so much.
Marvel did a number of covers like this around this time, but this one stood out the most. And what 90’s kid didn’t love Gambit (he was too smooth on the cartoon). Always mysterious, I was excited to find out more about Gambit in his first mini series. That shiny gold cover is poppin, definitely a classic cover that always comes to mind when I think of 90’s X books.
How much shinier can you get!?! Buying this off the shelf, I can’t tell you how excited I was to see Spider-Man kick some as…errrr ..butt in this obviously powerful new outfit (it would be destroyed in this issue, oh well). But that’s why these gimmick covers were so plentiful then. It manufactured so much added excitement for the childhood brain, even before you’ve read one page of the book. This hologram background was used for several other Spidey covers for a couple years, so you know you had to get it every time you saw it.
IT ALL ENDS HERE! In case you didn’t know that Green Lantern was going to be a pivotal story, they made sure you knew by giving it this incredible glow in the dark cover. The Emerald Twilight story was so crazy living through at that time, watching Hal go crazy over Coast City being destroyed, killing a bunch of other Lanterns and becoming Parallax, this all blew my young mind away. Green Lantern would truly never be the same, for a good many years. This was constantly in my read rotation, and helped shape what DC was for me in the 90s. Anytime I see this book pop up in boxes, it always holds a special place in that glorious pantheon of 90’s covers.