Worst. Cover. Ever. (part 12)

At the height of it's popularity, the Batman TV show made its title character a household name, not only spawning a tsunami of licensed merchandise, but also guaranteeing huge sales for any comic book cover he appeared on.

Batman's new star status was never more obvious than on covers of Justice League of America, where the Caped Crusader went from virtually zero cover appearances to the absolute center of attention on more than a year's worth of covers. 

That is, until the Earth-2 Robin showed up on the
cover of Justice League of America #55 (1967).

With the Batman of Earth-2 now "semi-retired", his grown-up ward Dick Grayson carried on his legacy as Robin...wearing an insane amalgamation of his boyhood togs and the Batman's costume.

Curiously, Robin's costume in the story itself dumped the cover's blue trunks for a gray tunic, somewhat like the one he wore as a kid (click on the image for a larger view).

So, besides Robin's horrific blue, yellow and grey monstrosity (complete with a bat-winged "R" chest symbol), what else makes this Worst Cover Ever material?

Ah...let me count the ways:

1.  Penciller Mike Sekowsky's stiff, awkwardly-posed characters.  Never a favorite of mine, Sekowsky's figures had all the grace and dynamism of department store mannequins.

2.  The campy, low-wattage villains that seemed to walk right out of a Batman TV episode. The ground-level bad guys are (from left to right) How Chu, the Money Master, and Gem Girl. Not exactly "must buy" material here. 

3.  Robin's incredibly cheap groin smash to the remaining villain, the unfortunately-named Sports Smasher. You can practically feel Batman's shame from here!

Following this disaster of a cover, Batman lost his star-billing status, becoming just another JLA member jockeying for face time.

No thanks to the lame, fashion-challenged Earth-2 Robin!

Comments

[Eric78]

Another thing thats wierd here is that Robins face doesn't seem to fit the body. Like they took a separate image of Robin and cut his head off and then stuck it on batman's body. Thats the first thing i spotted when I looked at this cover.