Marvel May Follow Hip-Hop Comic Book Covers With Punk, Metal or Country Variants

In January 2015, Run the Jewels and Marvel teamed up for badass variant comic book covers for Howard the Duck and Deadpool. Soon it blossomed into a whole thing, leading, that year alone, to more than 50 variant covers inspired by classic and new-classic rap albums. The collector-friendly initiative was so popular they started it up again last fall, with mixtures like Doctor Strange x Desiigner and Mosaic x Earl Sweatshirt

"When Nas comes out and says this is a dream come true," Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso tells Fuse in the interview above, "that's like God parting the clouds and saying, 'You got it.'"

And while the "ongoing cross-cultural dialogue" between Marvel and rap will continue (Method Man's doing Ghost Rider; vocally hip-hop–influenced MacArthur Genius/National Book Award–winner Ta-Nehisi Coates has writing a new Black Panther series for nine months), other genres will get their shine soon.