It was a nice treat after Kelley Jones' great work on DEADMAN, to have a Deadman crossover in three issues of his BATMAN run, in issues 530-532.
And while I'm generally very negative on the idea of multiple covers, die-cuts, chromium cuts, trading card inserts and whatever, which generally are really trashy gimmicks, there was one regular cover and one glow-in-the-dark-cover for each issue of this three-issue story, and they were cool !
The glow-in-the-dark art really worked with two creepy characters like Deadman and Batman, and the phantoms they were fighting.
I already showed a few of these covers. Here are the
(1)regular
and
(2) glow-in-the-dark covers, respectively, for issue 530 again:
Clicking on each for larger/clearer image of the latter cover, you can better make out the glow-in-the-dark parts of the image.
And here are the regular and glow-in-the-dark-enhanced covers for 531:
Again, the larger/clearer image of this glow-in the dark cover makes the glow-in-the dark portion more visible.
It's harder to see on this one, but it's mostly the mummies with the glow-stuff, and you can definitely appreciate it with the lights out !
And the two variant covers for 532:
I like this last one the best of the three, both with and without the glow-in-the-dark features.
I've seen
color overlays that have a similar effect, such as in the early Levitz/Giffen LEGION ( issues 287-306, and 1982 annual), and in the Roger Stern/Marshall Rogers DOCTOR STRANGE (issues 48-53, also out in 1981-1982).
But this is the first and only time I've seen
glow-in-the-dark overlays. And again, it really works well with ghost characters.
I don't know if Kelley Jones is the one who came up with the glow-in-the-dark color overlays, but it demonstrates imagination and is visually striking, whoever came up with it.
