Like all other periodic entertainment media, the comic book industry has historically attempted to commemorate (capitalize on) the holiday season. Where sitcoms roll out their annual Christmas episode, comic book publishers tend to favor the “Christmas cover” as opposed to devoting a full issue to the holiday, although many have done both.
Comic book continuity is one of the more difficult things to shoehorn Christmas into. For one, time is not linear in many books, and for some characters it just wouldn’t behoove creators to commemorate real world calendar-based events, since it would call to question their age (ie. if Bruce Wayne celebrated Christmas every year, it would be one more way of bringing to light the fact that the character is a minimum of 74 years old, but still looks like a super-fit 29 year old, because he has to. Let’s call it the “Maggie Simpson Impasse”).
Age aside, while Christmas could be a background aspect of a single comic book issue’s setting, it’s typically not the focus of today’s more serious-skewing books. Some characters and story arcs are just too violent or high-stakes to pause and observe puny Earth holidays.
That said, holiday-driven marketing is what it is, so comic books will always try to incorporate Christmas in their December publications, no matter how unseemly the fit. Here are 12 Christmas comic book covers that really “force the issue”:
OK, I’ll admit- this one is pretty badass:
But this one.. for SO many reasons, this is just.. no. Just no.
image credit: Comics Alliance, Comic Attack
It’s great that they were able to get the entire Saved By The Bell cast together at once so they could pose in front of that beautiful tree.
Stop encouraging them.