Iconic live-action Batman and Superman actors featured on World's Finest variant cover
Keaton, Nicholson, Reeve, and Hackman (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) appear on a December Batman/Superman: World's Finest #10 cover
DC has something of a Christmas gift for fans of its classic movies. Check out this variant cover to December's Batman/Superman: World's Finest #10, by artist Dan Schoening.
Yeah, those are comic book likenesses of Michael Keaton's Batman, Christopher Reeve's Superman, Jack Nicholson's Joker, and Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, or at least as close to likenesses as DC is legally allowed to get.
Keaton of course is returning to his iconic role of Batman in June 2023's long-awaited The Flash feature film. Some would argue all four actors delivered the best live-action performance of their characters, although Nicholson himself might give the nod to the late Heath Ledger when it comes to DC's Clown Prince of Crime.
Schoening's old-school DC movie variant cover for Batman/Superman: World's Finest #10 joins another holiday-themed variant, the previously-teased holiday-themed cover by Dan Mora depicting DC characters (in what seems to be '70s-'80s era costumes) with a mystery redacted figure singing into a microphone.
At the time we guessed it's a famous real-world figure and the silhouette suggested Harry Styles to us, but rethinking the era the superheroes costumes seems to depict, could that be Mick Jagger?
Now we don't know why Mick Jagger would be on a DC holiday-themed variant cover any more than Harry Styles would, but hey, we're working with what we've got.
Either way, comic book retailers have until November 20 to place their final orders on the issue before its release on December 20, so expect a full reveal of the mystery cover very soon.
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And of course, if you have a hankering for a Batman/Superman: World's Finest #10 variant cover with real-world celebrities, there's always the Schoening cover.
Batman/Superman: World's Finest is just one of the many (many) Batman comics DC publishes monthly. You can check out all of its scheduled new Batman comic books in 2022 and 2023 here.
I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.