After two years of having a single artist provide the Black History Month variant covers for Marvel, 2025 will see them shake things up by having four different artists celebrate the franchise’s characters. Karen S. Darboe, Ken Lashley, Mateus Manhanini, and Ernanda Souza will bring their gorgeous vision of Lando Calrissian, Mother Aniseya, Vail, and Mae & Osha to the variant cover line. Head below to check them all out now!
The first year they did Black History Month variants, it was an even split in gender representation for characters and last year swung in the opposite direction, with only one female character, and now this year it’s only one male character. Considering we know male characters typically get an uneven representation in the comics, it’s actually quite the nice change of pace. Ken Lashley and Mateus Manhanini provided the covers for the second and first years, respectively, so it’s cool to see them back, while Ernanda Souza and Karen S. Darboe are new and they make quite the memorable first impression. I particularly love the usage of The Acolyte‘s main twins and their powerful mother, while having Vail from Star Wars Outlaws was a surprise but a really welcomed touch, while this is Lando’s second appearance. As for why we went from 10 covers, to 5, and now only 4 for 2025 (and two of them are for adaptations), Marvel is in the midst of switching up their entire line-up, so we’ll be sort of between outputs when these are supposed to go out and I suspect it’ll be much the same for 2025’s Women’s History Month covers as well, though the Pride ones might have more covers to fill, hopefully.
Without further ado, here they are!
February 5:
Legacy of Vader #1 stars Mother Aniseya by Karen S. Darboe
February 19:
The High Republic: Fear of the Jedi #1 features Osha and Mae, by Mateus Manhanini, while Ahsoka #8 puts Vail in focus by Ernanda Souza
February 26:
Back from the dead, The Rise of Skywalker Adaptation #1 gives us Lando by Ken Lashley
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