The best comic book covers of the week – 18 February 2019

Posted on February 18, 2019

2 min read

There was this trend in the 1990s, where famous superheroes found themselves replaced in their comic books for a few years, before making a triumphant return. It was the equivalent of flooding the market with “New Coke” and then biding your time until a thirsty fanbase could down a gallon of “Classic Coke”, reigniting sales in the process.

Heck, it’s an idea that still happens today. We’ve seen Spider-Man make way for a superior alternative in the form of Otto Octavius, Steve Rogers was briefly dead for a while and gave his shield to Bucky and when Barry Allen died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally West was there to pick up the mantle and become the newest Scarlet Speedster.

My favourite replacement however? Freakin’ Batman, after he had his vertebrae rearranged by Bane’s lethal chiropractic knee. With the Bat broken, Gotham in chaos and various gimmick-themed villains roaming the streets, who could save the city from itself? None other, than Jean-Paul Valley! …Who? Recently introduced, Valley’s schtick was bonkers even for 1990s DC Comics. A Manchurian candidate, Valley had been programmed with the most lethal fighting skills imaginable, creating a sleeper agent for a defunct offshoot of the Knights Templar who could be used to police their organisation.

That programming ran deep, giving Valley an arsenal of skills and techniques to call upon whenever the situation presented itself. Basically, he was like the MacGuyver of assassins except he broke necks instead of locks. For a while, Valley was the Batman that Gtham needed during the Knightfall saga, and more than two decades later…I still love the idea.

Batman would reclaim his cowl eventually after KnightQuest saw Valley descend into madness and the saga of KnightsEnd began. It was crazy, it was pure 90s extreme to the max and there’ll never be another comic book storyline like it ever again. What a crazy couple of years that was. With that recap done, time to move on to the comic book covers of the week!