Marvel Comics will pay homage to hip-hop culture with 14 new variant covers that reimagine album covers by artists like Jay Z, LL Cool J and Missy Elliont. The 32-page comic book will debut on Jan. 6, 2016, according to the New York Times.
Marvel announced the covers in July, meant to bring more attention to new No. 1 issues, and began releasing the covers in October. The variant covers team up Jay Z with Black Panther, Rhymefest with Iron Man and A Tribe Called Quest with Spider-Man.
Axel Alonso, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, and his team had an immediate idea for a few covers like using the albums "Illmatic," "The Chronic," "Straight Outta Compton" and "3 Feet High and Rising" or paying tribute to artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Meth, Raekwon, GZA, MF Doom and Lupe. For the others, Marvel worked with the artists creating the covers.
"We knew right out the gate that there were certain covers that we just had to do, you know?" Alonso told Fuse. "'We looped in a few comic book artists that were big hip hop heads - Sanford Greene, Damion Scott, Juan Doe, Mike Del Mundo - and they got rolling on those iconic covers right away, and we built from there."
The Marvel-themed versions of famous hip-hop album covers have received a mix reaction. Rap artists like Eminem and Ice Cube, whose albums "Relapse" and "Death Certificate," respectively, inspired a couple covers, praised the art on Twitter. But Bleeding Cool columnist Joseph Phillip Illidge hesitated to give Marvel Comics too much credit when their staff still lacks blacks and Latinos.
"The bigger issue is the lasting promise of Marvel’s commitment to diversity, which is of greater import and impact than the Avengers posing like the Roots," Illidge told The New York Times.
Alonso anticipated the "negative feedback," referencing similar responses to the announcement that Thor would be a woman, or Ms. Marvel is a young Pakistani woman, or a black man was taking over the role of Captain America.
“Whenever we do something that’s new or controversial, you can anticipate that there will be negative feedback first and foremost out of the gate," Alonso told The New York Times. "You can’t be deterred by that. All we can do is put our best foot forward and let the actual work speak for itself.”
Marvel Comics will release its book of hip-hop variant covers the same days as the final issue for will land on the same day, Jan. 6, 2016, as the final issue of "Secret Wars #9," which gives fans one more month to savor the blockbuster comic book series.
