TV Guide Original Heroes Covers Out Today

TV Guide has always loved featuring original artwork on its covers, from its earliest days as an exhaustive, digest-sized resource: cover artists have included Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Jamie Wyeth, Charles Addams, Al Hirschfeld and Salvador Dali. The Guide was also a pioneer of the idea of drumming up magazine sales by putting out multiple covers for one issue on a particular subject, like the stars of a Star Trek franchise, or the local pro football team for a regional edition if the cover story is about the NFL. These multiple versions, called split covers, started in 1991.

Those two TV Guide hallmarks converge this week with four commissioned Heroes covers, each inked and colored by a recognized comic book artist and each featuring three or four members of the show's sprawling cast.

The covers are:

1. Will Hiro Get His Revenge? by acclaimed DC Comics artist Jim Lee, featuring Kensei, Hiro, and Ando
2. What's Niki Hiding? by Wonder Woman and Infinite Crisis artist Phil Jimenez, featuring Matt, Nathan, Niki, and Mohinder
3. Will Claire Lose Her Father? by Soulfire, Fathom, and Wolverine: Origins artist Michael Turner, featuring Peter, Claire, Noah, and Elle
4. Can Sylar Get His Powers Back? by Heroes's "in-house" 9th Wonders! artist and fontographer Tim Sale, featuring Maya, Sylar, Monica, and Micah. An interview with Tim Sale talking about his work on the show can be found at the TV Guide site.

Fans may or may not be able to find all four covers at their local stores. They can also be purchased together online; one place to do so is from the TV Guide online store, which is offering the set for $14.99 in what it says is a limited quantity. Note that TV Guide's cover price is $2.49, so that's a five-dollar mark-up, plus shipping and handling.

These covers are all not without coolness, and some of them are nice tributes to the characters – particularly Jim Lee's heroic conception of Hiro Nakamura. (And wow, Peter Petrelli has sure been working out.) Interestingly these covers all ask questions that are directly pertinent to the plot arcs developing at this moment, which will fix the covers in time in terms of the life of the show. Perhaps another round will be commissioned in a year or two, and Heroes fans will be able to ponder who's come and gone and how the show has changed.