The cultural commemorative month covers for 2026 have begun and it all starts with Black History in February, as first revealed by Star Wars Splash Page! We’ll dig into some context below, but there are only two covers this year, yet it’s a lovely connecting variant featuring characters from The High Republic, video games, other comics, TV shows, and the films drawn by artist Taurin Clarke, whose variants have often been some of my most desired in the past, especially for Doctor Aphra! Come bask in the wonderful cover, and hear some of the context, below.
We might only have two covers for 2026’s Black History Month variants, as there are only two Marvel comic releases (which we’ll get into soon), but given the smaller amount it seems Marvel at least decided to go big, as it’ll be the biggest amount of characters (12) yet in any given year since these started in 2023 (the previous high was 10 that very same year). Taurin Clarke does an exceptional job bringing all these various mediums together, especially regarding characters mainly seen in the comics, as they all have a similar realistic look to match live-action characters. As for who Clarke all drew, in case you’re wondering, we have (from left to right): Finn, Jannah, Moff Gideon, Greef Karga, Sana Starros, Lando Calrissian, Saw Gerrera, Cere Junda, Kelleran Beq, Mace Windu, Keeve Trennis, and Lula Talisola. It’s almost an even split on who has or hasn’t appeared on a Black History variant before, as Gideon, Gerrera, Junda, Beq, and Talisola all make their debut in 2026. Clarke pitched quite the list, as he revealed on the Star Wars Comics subreddit, with a mixture of characters who have or haven’t appeared on these variants, but Marvel had last say in the end. Here’s who else Clarke was considering:
Steela Gerrera (Clone Wars)
Kai Brightstar (Jedi, High republic)
Trilla Suduri/ Second Sister (Inquisitors)
Captain Panaka (Battle of Naboo)
Mae (Jedi, High Republic)
Osha (Sith, High Republic)
Enfys Nest (Pirate, BBY era)
Less Prominent
Chancey Yarrow
Affie Hollow
Vi Moradi
Black Presenting Aliens
Adi Gallia
Ty Yorrick
These two variants are on the upcoming recently revealed one-shot Jar Jar #1, which includes Ahmed Best co-writing and features Beq as well as Binks, and Star Wars #10 (2025), the very likely finale to Alex Segura’s time with the mainline series. As for why there are only these two releases, it seems Marvel is not only focusing on greenlighting 10-issue long series, and deciding after issue 5 if they get more or not, but they are really watching sales to the point it dampens excitement for comics, as Doctor Aphra: Chaos Agent was cut at 5 issues, before it even got to prove itself sales-wise, as I can only assume line-wide there were less-than-stellar sales. Is it the industry? Is it that writers are only given 10 issues and it’s stifling creativity and fans can’t connect as much? Is it editorial mandates that further stifle the creatives and may lead to less than interesting stories? Is it a combo of parts of all the above, and more? I’ll try to dissect this more for my upcoming year-in-review post, but at this point, it could be entirely possible there won’t be a Marvel release in March 2026 and that means no Women’s History Month variants to go with it, which would be a damn shame. I get some of these current series might not have been selling well, but the galaxy brained idea not to sell any comics so there aren’t any sales problems to worry about isn’t a positive like they might think it is. Hopefully when Marvel returns to tell more tales in 2026 with whatever relaunches they bring, maybe they’ll have more faith in the creatives and the stories they tell than worrying about sales…and then we can get more lovely cultural commemorative covers too.
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on Bluesky and Instagram @mynockmanor.