John Romita, Sr. To Provide Superman Variant Cover

Legendary The Amazing Spider-Man artist John Romita, Sr. will provide a variant cover for this month’s Superman, featuring a script from DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and interior art by Romita’s son, John Romita, Jr.

This new cover is “the first time I’ve done Superman on a [comic book] cover,” Romita (Sr.) told The Hollywood Reporter, who got the first look at the cover above. “I’ve done a few sketches when we used to do crossovers, and a couple of paperback covers that had Superman on them, and I’ve done Superman on sketches for kids on conventions. DC called me and asked me if I would be interested in doing a variant cover, and I told them as long as it wasn’t a crowd scene, I’d try it.”

Romita, who is officially retired, said that he comes out of retirement for things like this so often it’s hard to think of himself as out of the game — but coming back to DC for the first time in fifty years was different.

“I worked there in prehistoric times for about eight years,” he joked. “It was between 1958 and ’65. In those eight years, I did a lot of romance comics.”

The younger Romita took on Superman two months ago as his first-ever DC Comics ongoing, teaming with Johns to reinvigorate the troubled series which never quite found its footing after the New 52 relaunch. The storyline revolves around Superman helping another super-powered castaway from a dead society find his place in the world.

In #34, Superman and Ulysses will square off against The Machinist, a new villain created for the title. The character will presumably be responsible for the series of automated attacks on Metropolis, starting with Titano in the opening pages of the Johns/Romita run.

Superman #34 hits the stands on August 27.