Marvel's "Top 70 Covers" -- Bah!

[birdygirl]

Has anyone seen the "Top 70 Covers" list at the Marvel website? What a disappointment!

I was already put out by the fact that no Alpha Flight story made the top 70 greatest comic stories list, but I put my disappointment past me, and moved on. I thought Alpha had a better chance of being represented in the best covers list. Surely with all the beautiful covers John Byrne did during his run on the book, Alpha would have a chamce.

Well, I should have known better. First, there were very few JB AF covers up for voting. But I voted daily and faithfully for AF #1, 3, and 6, as well for as for UXMen #120 and 121. (Gee, can you tell that I'm an Alpha Flight fan?)

But it turned out to be a wasted effort. Needless to say, Alpha Flight was not represented even once, and most of the covers there were mediocre, at best, IMO. I particularly dislike #67, an ugly cover with the Hulk knocking Iron Man's head off. (In my disappointment, I have to fixate on one I especially detest.) I do like #16, the all-red Vision cover, but that was the only one I really liked.

I noticed that there is a thread for this at the John Byrne forum, and that everyone who has posted feels exactly the way I do. (JB himself said the list was "clueless".) Have any of the rest of you seen this list? What are your thoughts?

[Flightpath07]

Personally, i thought that at the very least, AF volume 1's issues 11 and 12 should have made the list...
As with all things Marvel lately, it is all bogus.

[DelBubs]

AI can see this becoming a top ten of fave AF covers thread, but I would definately had expected AF vol 1 #3 to have been there.

[birdygirl]

AF vol. 1 #3, 11, and 12 were all beautiful covers. AF #3 is even John Byrne's favorite cover EVER. Considering that JB doesn't like AF, this ought to say something.

[rplass]

Alpha Flight was not represented even once

Not exactly true... cover #47 is X-Men #190, featuring Northstar and Aurora, not on the cover, but inside. Doesn't really count, I know...

Cover #37 is X-Men #200, and Northstar's on the cover of that variant shown. He's also listed on the little guide inside identifying the characters on the cover. That's supposed to be a gatefold cover, dunno why they only show the front...

Cover #19 is X-Men: Alpha, an Age of Apocalypse title, and AoA Wild Child is on the cover. They are showing the 2nd printing there, the 1st printing being a foil cover.

I voted for AF#1 too, no luck. It would have been nice to have at least 1 Alpha Flight cover, oh well, at least we got these three issues.

Love,
rplass

[birdygirl]

Thank you for the correction, rplass. I guess I had to look harder to see the Alphans.

[Le Messor]

I should be fired.

My mind went wrong: "#3? What? No, #4! That's the best one! You know, the black and white (basic'ly) one with Aurora and all those posts... so distinctive, so evocative. One of the most iconic covers evaaar!"

I've just checked, and #3 was the one I was thinking of. I should know these things.

- Le Messor
"Forget chasing rainbows; it doesn't work. If you want rainbows, chase storms."
- David P. Burdette, Office of the Registrar, Univ. of Florida

[Tawmis]

It's not a surprise though that ALPHA FLIGHT didn't get top spot covers. It was based on voting. And as much as we may love ALPHA FLIGHT, the fact is, ALPHA FLIGHT isn't and hasn't ever really been a top title - so when you have 200 covers from Uncanny X-Men and 200 covers from Avengers and 200 covers of Spider-Man to pick from - the votes will mostly be scattered among those titles - because there's SO many covers there to pick from. So even if all 131 covers of the first run of ALPHA FLIGHT were included - and just X-Men, Avengers and Spider-Man had 200 covers each - it's 131 covers of AF vs 600 other covers. (And we need to remember there were THOR covers, FANTASTIC FOUR covers, etc etc). So since ALPHA FLIGHT doesn't have a HUGE fan base - we would have had to do an organized voting scheme to get ALPHA FLIGHT picked and voted every single day without fail.