Whatever else you might want to say about Final Crisis, it sure had some standout covers:

Each main cover of Final Crisis featured a portrait of a character important to that issue, rendered by J.G. Jones and set against a single-color background. These portraits are detailed, realistic-looking, and striking. And yet, they’re not actually the reason I wanted to highlight this cover from Final Crisis 7.

When Final Crisis began, the book’s logo consisted of the words Final Crisis rendered in crisp, solid block letters, one word to a side of the cover. As the series continued, and the DC multiverse broke down within the story, the series’s logo also lost coherence. By this final issue, the formerly stalwart and tidy letters look as though they could be blown out of existence with a single breath, if Superman doesn’t manage to save the day.

I cannot find a source for this, but I want to say that logo designer Rian Hughes, who was doing a decent amount of logo design for DC at this time, created the Final Crisis logo and pitched the idea for the logo’s deterioration. I’m going to dig through some of my back issues to see if that info’s included in a DC Nation column from the time. If so, I’ll add a parenthetical update here. Regardless, it’s a neat idea executed well, and the simple-yet-evolving cover treatment really set Final Crisis apart from other books on the stand at the time (and would likely still hold up well on stands today).

(Want to check out more posts in the Cool Comic Covers series? If so, click here.)