5 Unbelievable Marvel Comics Covers That Turned Fans’ Heads

Marvel Comics might be a titan of the comic book industry, but it’s got a lot of bizarre comic covers in its long-spanning history. Sure, we all know the classics like Amazing Fantasy #15 or Infinity Gauntlet #1, and to the company’s credit, there are so many more covers that hit rather than miss. But the truth is, no one is perfect. Over the last several decades, Marvel Comics has had more than a couple of covers that featured material that is cringey, bizarre, or even outright offensive. It’s not common, but it is indeed something that happens.

Sometimes it’s a cover that really turns heads by having a character show more than you’d expect, like the cover of Sensational She-Hulk #40. Other times it’s a cover that leans into a real-world event, as was the case for the original cover of X-Statix #15. Different covers always have different reasons for their notoriety. But for better or worse, Marvel Comics has more than a handful of cover art that readers look back on and wonder how they ever got past the pitching process. Read on to see 5 Marvel Comics covers that’ll definitely have you doing a double-take.

5. Sensational She-Hulk #40

We all know covers sometimes lie to get us to buy the comic, but in this case, Sensational She-Hulk does deliver exactly what it promises. She-Hulk, at the insistence of her creative team, is being made to jump rope in the buff while she attempts to cover herself with the Comics Code Authority symbol. This cover actually leads into the story itself, where Jennifer Walters skips rope nude for a few pages until she’s interrupted by the book’s editor. It’s hard to imagine Marvel doing something like this today, but it’s still wild that they got away with it back then.

4. The Amazing Spider-Man #601

This was a cover that found itself at the center of a firestorm. The Amazing Spider-Man #601 is fairly innocuous, showing Mary-Jane Watson sitting around while Spider-Man zips around in the background. But fans noticed that MJ’s proportions were off, especially her waist, and later posted ‘fixed’ versions online, much to the displeasure of the cover’s original artist, J. Scott Campbell. The original art and its alterations led to a lot of conversations about the depiction of female characters in comic books, as well as whether or not ‘fixing’ an artist’s creation was right or not.

3. Spider-Woman #1

This cover here wasn’t actually the main one designed for Spider-Woman #1, but it got far more coverage than the standard one. Artist Milo Manara provided a cover for the debut issue that showed Jessica Drew slinking onto the top of a building, with her body bending and showing off curves more than usual. The cover was indeed published with the series’ title covering the more defined curves. Fans took to social media to voice their displeasure and discuss the overt sexualization of Spider-Woman, and it ended with Marvel actually pulling two additional covers by Marana from publication.

2. Edge of Spider-Verse #2

The variant for Edge of Spider-Verse #2 isn’t objectionable in and of itself. However, the story behind it did have fans giving Marvel Comics the side-eye. Artist Zoe Thorogood revealed that she was paid to create a character design for the Zarina Zahari incarnation of Spider-UK. However, the design she used was later used as a variant cover for the series, something Throgood got hate for, even though she was not aware Marvel intended to use her design as a variant. The art isn’t bad, but one can’t help but feel for Thorogood over how she was misled.

1. X-Statix #15

This story is so crazy, I still can’t believe it. Years after the death of Princess Diana, Marvel Comics released a solicitation that outright said it was reviving the people’s princess as a mutant in the Marvel Universe. This news was picked up in the UK by The Daily Mail, and many people were understandably pissed. Marvel Comics decided to change course at the last second and change the toe-headed woman on X-Statix #15’s cover to the raven-haired Henrietta Hunter. This cover never saw the light of day, but it still had a huge effect on the real world.

What’s the wildest Marvel Comics cover you’ve ever seen? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts on the ComicBook Forum!

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