Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso took to Twitter to unveil another new cover from the publisher’s hip-hop variant initiative hitting in October: Artist Damion Scott paying homage to Outkast’s 1998 album “Aquemini,” for a variant cover to the upcoming “Uncanny Inhumans” #1.
After being unveiled early last week, Marvel’s hip-hop variant cover initiative was met with both enthusiasm and criticism, the latter reaction primarily stemming from the position that Marvel was appropriating hip-hop culture while not employing Black writers or artists on its current monthly titles.
After Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort wrote on Tumblr questioning a connection between a lack of Black creators on ongoing titles and the hip-hop variants, Image Comics Branding Manager and longtime comics blogger David Brothers posted a response, writing, “To claim you’re paying homage (for profit, with no-doubt rare variant covers to be sold at a mark-up to an audience that often does not include the people these albums were created by) while simultaneously not being willing to hire the people who could bring those concepts to your comics in an authentic fashion…the optics are bad, man.”
Several of the hip-hop artists homaged in the Marvel variants have expressed enthusiasm for the program, however, including Killer Mike of Run the Jewels (who Marvel paid homage to earlier this year with “Howard the Duck” and “Deadpool” variant covers), De La Soul and The Pharcyde. While a Run DMC-themed cover has not yet been announced, Darryl McDaniels has already tweeted his excitement at seeing the artwork homaging his group’s album.
More than 50 hip-hop variants in total are scheduled for release; around 15 have been shown online thus far.
