The 'Move Over, Superheroes' Comic Book Cover Trope

In I Can't Cover What I Am, I spotlight a collection of comic book covers (of at least ten covers...okay, I also typically stop at ten, so I should just say "ten covers") that follow a specific theme.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Fabricio, I will spotlight instances of comic book covers where a character (or a narrator) tells somebody to "move over" or "step aside" to make room for a new character. It's an oddly specific and yet popular trope.

ROM #21

The first example we're looking at is from Rom #21, a cover by Al Milgrom, spotlighting the addition of Torpedo into the series. Torpedo had been introduced in the pages of Daredevil, but Bill Mantlo brought him over to Rom, but sadly, the character did not have a long comic book career, as he died 29 issues later in ROM #50.

Later, the costume was worn by a young relative of Torpedo, who shared it with a friend of his under the name Turbo. Turbo eventually joined the New Warriors, but the relative, Michael, was killed (by the same creatures who killed Torpedo) and his friend, Mickey, became the sole Turbo.

INCREDIBLE HULK #271

Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen had introduced a joke character named Rocky Raccoon in one of Marvel's black and white magazines and Mantlo decided a few years later to bring the character into the main Marvel Universe as ROCKET Raccoon (to distance the character a bit from being literally named after a Beatles song).

Rocket Raccoon took over Hulk's 20th anniversary cover on this issue, also drawn by Al Milgrom.

ALPHA FLIGHT #1

The Alpha Flight ongoing series is an unusual situation where I do not believe that John Byrne (who had created the heroes for a story in X-Men when Byrne was co-plotting the book with Chris Claremont) really was all THAT interested in doing an ongoing series on the Canadian superheroes, but since he had created them, I think he almost felt obliged to handle their adventures when Marvel decided to give them their own series.

Byrne had drawn so many of Marvel's major heroes by that point (and was in the middle of his iconic run on Fantastic Four) that it was particularly fun seeing him show these newer heroes push aside Marvel's mainstays, all drawn by Byrne once more.

SECRET WARS II #6

Al Milgrom was once again responsible for this cover (Rest assured, this list is not all Al Milgrom covers. This is his last appearance). Inked by Steve Leailoha, this issue of Secret Wars II sees the Beyonder decide to become a superhero.

The Beyonder's human body was essentially a clone of Captain America's body, only with a Michael Jackson-inspired hairdo.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #22

Speedball had been created by Tom DeFalco and the legendary Steve Dikto as part of an early formulation of what became the New Universe. The character then made his actual debut in this Amazing Spider-Man Annual, with a cover by Ron Frenz and John Romita.

Doesn't Ron Frenz just do the most wonderfully old school covers? Speedball and the previously mentioned Turbo were both New Warriors teammates together.

BRUTE FORCE #2

We all know Marvel made a number of hit comic book series based on toy lines, like G.I. Joe and Transformers, but what if the opposite could be true? That was the concept behind Brute Force, a comic book series intended to inspire a toy company to create a toy based on the comic book series (rather than Marvel doing a comic book for a toy that it did not own the rights to).

This Jose Delbo and Mike DeCarlo cover shows even more new characters, primed for toy tie-ins.

INCREDIBLE HULK #387

This one if a bit misleading, as the cover suggests that the little kid on the cover is as bad as Damien from The Omen, but the twist in this story is that the little kid is actually just being used as a conduit for the mental powers of a little girl who has befriended the boy and plans to use him as a tool to gain great power in the future through the use of her mind control abilities (while making it seem like the boy has the powers, so that no one can trace it back to her).

The cover was drawn by Dale Keown and Josef Rubinstein.

EXALIBUR #45

One of the very first villains that the X-Men spinoff British superhero team, Excalibur, faced, was Technet, who were characters leftover from Alan Davis' run on Captain Britain's comic book series in England. Technet was a group of alien bounty hunters who would travel through time and space to find their prey.

After the team split with their leader, they were sort of just hanging out at the home of Excalibur. However, when a danger came about and only Nightcrawler was at the headquarters of Exalibur (and he had a broken leg, so he was not the biggest help himself), the former longstanding member of the X-Men trained the Technet members to become the N-Men. They are depicted on this cover by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer.

MAD MAGAZINE #344

In 1994, Whoopi Goldberg made history as the first woman and first Black person to host the Academy Awards by herself. The next year, David Letterman hosted and it was a bit of a debacle, so the Academy quickly brought Whoopi back (she hosted four times in total, which puts her way up there amongst the most frequent Oscar hosts, although Bob Hope and Billy Crystal remain the two most common hosts of the awards ceremony).