The Cool Kids Table: Art Attack: March 2012's Coolest Covers

-I was not at all familiar with the Extreme characters in the 90's (only one X-Treme character), but the covers for Avengelyne and Glory are so far askew from what I remember that I'm instantly intrigued. Absolutely what covers are supposed to do. Kudos to Owen Gieni and Ross Campbell, if I pick up these books it will be because of you.

-It feels sometimes like a lot of homage covers are drawing from the same pool of a dozen or so source images, but Avengers #150 certainly isn't one of them, yet there it is on Art Adams' variant for Avengers Assemble #1. Cool.

-Echoing what has already been said elsewhere, but Frank Cho's wood-etching-esque background for Avengers VS X-Men #0 is breathtaking.

-I haven't read Blue Estate, but Viktor Kalvachev's covers draw my interest just about every month. I love what he does with design, with message and visual metaphors.

-Daredevil #10 by Paolo Rivera. GUH. It's like he gets bored with being merely amazing and has to look around and see what isn't already being done so he can do it. I remember being blown away by his paintings and then being shocked when he did that Amazing Spider-Man issue with Punisher and I was like, "Holy crap, he can DRAW too!" Now I don't even know what he's doing with the surroundings of DD here, but it's incredible. I'm not sure if his dad inked this, but if he did, even more astounding; they both get better by the second (and are swell guys too).

-Few have knocked more covers out of the park in the last few years than J.G. Jones, but it's always nice to see him pull out his toolbox, whether it's doing Frankenstein like a movie poster or the layering on Mister Terrific. His old tricks still work and he's always trying new ones as well.

-Love the claustrophobic portrait of Wolverine, Spider-Man and Captain America by Alex Maleev for Moon Knight; a touch of Travis Charest almost, but distinctly Maleev.

-The Punisher is so casual pulling his gun out while driving a cab in that Bryan Hitch cover. It's an absurd set-up that Hitch manages to make deadly serious.

-Jock's Scalped cover creeps me out. I mean that as a compliment.

-Kalman Andrasofsky saved the best for last on X-23. I'd buy a poster of that.

AGE OF APOCALYPSE #1 by Humberto Ramos