The cover theme game works like this: I'll show you three covers. They all have something in common, whether it be a character, a trait all three characters share, a connection between all three characters, a locale, a trait all three creators share, SOMEthing. And it isn't something obvious like "They all have prices!" "They all have logos!" "They all feature a man!" "They are all Avengers (who ISN'T?)!" "They're all dead (who HASN'T been killed off?)!" "They've all been cloned (who HASN'T been cloned?)!" "They're all mutants!" (who ISN'T a mutant?) "They're all orphans!" (who ISN'T an orphan?) "They're all legacy heroes" (who ISN'T a legacy hero nowadays?)! "They're all by the same artist!" (too obvious) etc.

In addition, please note that you must have some familiarity with comic book history to correctly guess these themes. You cannot guess the connective theme just by looking at the covers solely, you must have some knowledge beyond the covers. The connections will ONLY have to do with connections in the actual comic books (so no incidental connections like "they share the same last names of Vice Presidents," etc. Now, if the three characters were each named Gerald Ford, that'd be another story, as that'd no longer be incidental).

If you come up with an answer that works outside of what I intended, I'll give you credit (well, provided I think it fits, of course).

One more thing - if there are floating heads on the cover, ignore them! They don't mean anything! Same thing with corner boxes!

If you think you know the answer, e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. Don't answer in the comments. This way, people who check in at different times of the day can still get credit for answering it correctly!

Here is an archive of all the past cover theme games, plus their answers. Before each new installment, I'll post the answers to the previous week's game.

Good luck and enjoy!

No one got last week's correct (Sandy sent in a good alternate guess that I WOULD accept, but I want to see if people can't get the "official" answer, as well). I've made an edit to make it a bit easier...

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Again, reader Trevor Reece suggested this one. It's a bit of a goofy one, but it made me laugh, so I like it.

Now on to THIS week's challenge...

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I figured I'd go with something more straightforward after last week's sort of goofy theme (but a very clever theme, Trevor!). I guess it wasn't straightforward enough. I changed the last cover to make it even clearer.

Okay, so I figured after two weeks where people couldn't get the answer, I'd go back to my normal more difficult ones - maybe that will somehow work out better.

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The tricky part is connecting the third cover to the first two.