Marvel heroes break bad with super-villain mash-up covers this December - matzpasuch

Marvel heroes break bad with super-baddie mash-up covers this Dec

(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

This December, Marvel is mashing up some of its most painting heroes and villains into stinking new characters for a series of 'Villain's Reign' version covers - and the pairings are a snatch more surprising than combining the heroes with their traditional condescending-enemies.

Kicking off with eight covers, Wonder promises that more 'Villains Reign' variants - meaning more hero/villain mash-up art from few of the publisher's top artists - are on the room.

Though the concept of combining heroes and villains whitethorn seem like just a cool catch, Wonder really ties the mind to writer Chip Zdarsky and creative person Marco Checchetto's upcoming Devil's Reign limited series, in which Kingbolt (featured on one of the 'Villains Reign' variants mashed-up with Predominate) sends his possess ad hominem version of the Thunderbolts after Matt Murdock and Elektra.

Appropriate to the theme, the Thunderbolts originally started unconscious as a group of secret identities for the Masters of Evil, World Health Organization were masquerading as heroes equally split up of a plan to adopt the international.

Here's the lean of variant covers, including the championship on which they'll appear, the release date of the publication, the characters included in the mash-up, and of course, the artist of for each one covering fire:

Whale #2 - Loom as Kingbolt past Pete Woods (December 1)
Thing #2 - Matter as Death past Dan Panosian (December 1)
Disgraceful Painter #2 - Black Panther as Sabretooth by Kael Ngu (December 8)
Astonishing Spider-Man #82 - Mary Jane Watson as Nightmare past Joshua 'Sway' Swayby (December 15)
Avengers #51 - She-Hulk as Kraven the Huntsman (Dec 15)
Captain America/Ironman #2 - Captain America as Princess Python by Leinil Francis Yu (December 22)
Death of Doctor Imported # 4 - Doctor Odd As Ringmaster by Annie Wu (December 22)
Police captain Marvel #35 - Captain Wonder atomic number 3 Mole Man past Todd Nauck (December 29)

Though Marvel has seldom been shy around mashing up its own characters with titles such A Infinity Warps, Deadpool the Duck, and many (more, many) more, the closest the publisher has total to in reality pull off something like the concept embodied in the variant covers was in 2014's Axis event, in which the mindsets of Wonder's heroes and villains were swapped, with the bad guys sledding good, and the good guys breaking bad.

Here's a gallery of all eight 'Villains Reign' covers released so far:

Image 1 of 8

Mental image 2 of 8

Image 3 of 8

Image 4 of 8

Project 5 of 8

Image 6 of 8

Image 7 of 8

Image 8 of 8

Marvel's 'Villains Dominate' variant covers launch in December. Stay tuned to Newsarama for Marvel's untasted December 2021 solicitations, coming advanced this calendar month.

Marvel Comics loves 'mutton its mash 'mut ups. IT's a creative tool the publisher revisits often as start of its mastery of what Stan Lee called the illusion of change.

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic record historian since 2011. I've also been the on-site reporter at the most star comic conventions so much Eastern Samoa Comic-Con Global: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many another Wyrd pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)