The 15 Most Iconic NYC Comic Book Images

Image via Complex Original

If you see a lot of Spider-Man on this list, it’s because he’s Marvel’s everyman. He’s not traveling through time and space or into different dimensions; no, Spider-Man is a real New Yorker, and his adventures almost exclusively revolve around the five boroughs. On this cover for Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #42, we see Spidey fighting the Human Torch (who actually turned out to be Electro) on top of one the city’s most famous landmarks, the Statue of Liberty. This image by artist Mike Zeck is pure Marvel: two super-powered icons locked in battle on top of a universally-recognized piece of Americana. It's pop art at its finest. 

Any fan of Daredevil worth their salt knows that Frank Miller’s “Born Again” isn’t just the best storyline that the Man Without Fear has ever been a part of, it’s also still one of the best stories that Marvel has ever put out. And in the first issue of this classic, artist Dave Mazzucchelli crafted an ominous cover featuring the Kingpin’s watchful gaze hovering over a beautifully rendered image of the New York skyline as Daredevil is caught in the crosshairs.

The most striking aspect of this image of New York is that this doesn’t seem like Marvel’s version of the Big Apple; instead, Mazzucchelli took a realistic approach to the city, further highlighting Miller’s grim and gritty script. We’ve seen the New York skyline countless times in comics, but rarely has it ever felt as authentic as this.

Truth be told, we could have filled this entire list with jaw-dropping images of NYC from Marvels, but we decided to narrow it down to this one page that features an Atlantean invasion force marching past the Flatiron Building, which is coincidentally not too far away from the Complex offices. Artist Alex Ross was simply on his game throughout this mesmerizing miniseries, and this page is easily one of his best.

There are Norman Rockwell elements to his beautiful paintings that blend in seamlessly with the romanticism and otherworldly action of the Marvel Universe. The most amazing thing about this image is how detailed the Flatiron is here. This helps make the universe feel more authentic than ever, and, quite honestly, this images is still more powerful than what Marvel has put on the big screen so far. We may never see the wonders of comic books make their way into the real world, but with panels like this, we can view them in awe from our living rooms.

Though Galactus has never really acted on his promise to consume Earth and its resources, he sure does rack up the property damage whenever he shows up. And on this cover for Fantastic Four #122, artist John Buscema—one of the pre-eminent comic talents of the Golden and Silver ages—illustrates this classic image of the Devourer of Worlds having it out with the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer in Coney Island, with the famous Cyclone roller-coaster as one of his many victims.

The great thing about setting the Marvel Universe in New York is that when there is a clash at an amusement park, it’s based off one millions of people go to every summer. Every time we see the Cyclone in real life, we can image John Buscema’s art depicting a space-traveling purple god doing battle with a Spandex-clad family of four and a silver-plated cosmic surfer. Well, that’s what we like to imagine, at least.

Despite Marvel making a killing at the box office every summer, the truth of the matter is that the comic books themselves don't sell incredibly well anymore, especially when compared to sales figures from the ‘60s through the ‘90s. So in an attempt to get mainstream attention for its comics, Marvel regularly holds big events in certain books in order to attract a broader audience. And last year, the House of Ideas featured the company's first gay wedding between two of its lesser-known characters, X-Men member Northstar and his boyfriend, Kyle Jinadu, that created some significant buzz.

The cover of this issue features the controversial wedding taking place right in the middle of Central Park, courtesy of artist Dustin Weaver. The ambiance and buildings in this image are just perfect, and even people who have never even stepped foot inside in the city would be able to tell exactly where this wedding is taking place. You can practically smell the exhaust fumes and Nuts 4 Nuts roasting in a cart nearby.

Seeing the Hulk go on a rampage is nothing new for longtime comic book readers, but on the cover of The Incredible Hulk #206, the Jade Giant goes berserk right in front of the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan. Illustrated by the legendary Dave Cockrum, this cover takes the Hulk out of his usual West Coast and desert surroundings and places him right in the heart of the busiest city on the planet. Well before the Occupy Wall Street crowd attempted to stir up trouble in front of the NYSE, the Hulk used it to work out a temper tantrum of titanic proportions.

When Spider-Man first debuted his new black suit in his solo title, artist Ron Frenz decided to introduce the new duds on a cover that was as an homage to the character’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15. However, this time the image features the iconic Empire State Building placed right against the stark red sky. As Marvel has always done, this cover casually puts one of the most recognizable buildings in the world in the background of this image just to further drive the point home that these stories take place in the same world that we occupy.

The DC Universe may not show New York often, but when it does, the company makes sure that it counts. In this two-page spread from Kamandi #1, written and illustrated by Jack Kirby, we see the titular hero making his way through the flooded ruins of New York City in the distant future. The story takes place after an unnamed cataclysm destroys most of the cities on Earth, as well as a good deal of the human population, leaving only super-intelligent animals to run things. Sure it’s a riff on Planet of the Apes, but Kamandi proved to be one of the company’s more experimental titles in a genre that doesn’t often like to leave its comfort zone.

In this gorgeous spread, which Kirby was famous for, we see waterlogged NYC landmarks showing the scars and destruction of a planet-wide catastrophe. Images of a Post-Apocalyptic Earth are so commonplace now that it is easy to ignore them, but here Kirby gives weight and scope to his surroundings in a way that $200 million blockbusters still can’t compete with.

In Brian Wood’s politically-charged war title, DMZ, he proved that Manhattan isn’t just a playground for superheroes, mutants and monsters in the comic book world. The book itself revolves around a second civil war breaking out in America, which turns New York City into a demilitarized zone, where neither the USA nor the forces of the Free States of America are in control. The island is a constant warzone with bandits and small factions of guerrilla fighters causing mayhem just for mayhem’s sake.

Artist Ricardo Burchielli took this opportunity to craft a haunting full-page image of Midtown in the series’ first issue. Covered in flames, crime and graffiti, New York now looks like the countless images of war-torn countries like Iraq, Syria and Kosovo from over the years. But standing high above the ravaged buildings is the Empire State Building, letting readers know this isn’t some fictional world we’re dealing with; this is our city under attack.

It was a battle that was all but inevitable. On one side you have Marvel’s wise-cracking mascot, the Amazing Spider-Man, while on the other you have the hero that started it all at DC, Superman. In this titanic one-shot issue, these two heroes squared off in the heart of NYC in one of the first big blockbuster events to ever hit the comic book medium. On the book’s cover, by Carmine Infantino and Ross Andru, these two icons are seen doing battle on the spire of the Empire State Building in an image that can only be described as purely epic.

Though Superman lives comfortably in his hometown of Metropolis, seeing him step foot into our real world and interacting with our landmarks just makes us giddy. The towering heights these two heroes climb to do battle is dizzying, as the artists on this cover give us a sense of off-centered vertigo as we see the city in all her glory. The story inside the actual comic might not be memorable, but honestly, you can’t argue with that cover.

When writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Tony Harris debuted Ex Machina over at DC’s Vertigo imprint in 2004, it was billed as a book about Mitchell Hundred, a former superhero known as The Great Machine, who gets elected mayor of New York City. Little did readers know when they first picked up the book that the sole event that helped Hundred go from failed hero to the most powerful man in the city is the fact that on 9/11 he prevented United Flight 175 from hitting the south tower of the World Trade Center.

When the image of the lone tower standing is revealed at the end of the debut issue, it’s an absolutely shocking revelation that should make every American at least a little uneasy. But Vaughan and Harris deftly avoided making this about shock value, and thanks to some spot-on art, this lone image proved to be one of the most memorable single comic book pages of the past decade.

With all of the masked heroes, crass sex scenes, and blue genitalia featured in Watchmen, it’s easy to forget that the book takes place in New York City, albeit in an alternate future where Nixon is still president and the good guys are also sociopaths. We get a few glimpses of the city’s famous skyline throughout the story, thanks to Dave Gibbons, but it’s on this cover from one of the early trade paperback reproductions of Watchmen that we really see Alan Moore’s NYC in all her twisted glory.

Through the broken, bloodied glass that the Comedian's body was thrown out of that started this whole book, we see the famous visage of the Chrysler Building glowing in the night sky. It's a small detail, but it furthers Moore and Gibbons’ point that while we’re reading about these extraordinary events in the story, many of the themes and conflicts exist in our real world.

The illustrations may be a bit crude, and it is a little tough to pick out which landmarks are which—although we’re sure we see the Empire State Building in there—but this panel is perhaps one of the most important in the history of New York City comics. In Human Torch Comics #5, we finally get to see the original Torch, Jim Hammond, go toe-to-toe with our favorite aquatic curmudgeon, the Sub-Mariner, in an epic fight that laid the groundwork for the superhero brawls to come from the company over the next seven decades.

The climax of the battle comes when the Sub-Mariner uses his whirlpool device (science!) to flood New York City. Up until this point, the residents of the early Marvel Universe lived in New York City, but never really interacted with the city itself. However, in this issue we see the Big Apple getting destroyed in one panel in terrifying fashion. We can't imagine what comic fans across the city during the '40s must have thought as their backyard was playing out as the battleground between these two titans on the page.

When the 9/11 attacks happened in New York City, Marvel couldn’t just stand back and ignore it. This is the city that its heroes populate, so when tragedy struck, the company used its most relatable character to deal with it. In Amazing Spider-Man #36, Spider-Man swings to the World Trade Center site just after the towers collapsed. As he looks upon the flaming wreckage of this once-proud landmark, he can do nothing but stand in silent horror, just as we all did.

The issue’s highlight is a two-page spread by the incredible John Romita Jr. that gives us the Marvel-ized version of the events. It’s striking to realize just how close to a comic book plot the events of that day actually were. Here the look of New York is expertly crafted by a comic book veteran, and while the events on the page are nothing short of heart-wrenching, Romita managed to get over the emotions he must have been feeling at the time to bring us a classic time capsule for the world we live in.

Throughout all of the titanic battles and epic storylines that New York City has served as a backdrop to in the history of comics, it was the death of one high school girl that made the biggest impact. In Amazing Spider-Man #121, during a battle between the Green Goblin and the Web Head, Spider-Man’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, was thrown from the top of the Brooklyn Bridge (erroneously called the George Washington Bridge by then-editor Stan Lee) and died when Spidey tried to save her with his webbing.

This sole event changed the landscape not only of Spider-Man's life, but of all superhero comics. And we take great pride that it all happened on top of a prized New York landmark. The fact that the Marvel characters live in a real city with real landmarks has always separated the company from its competitors, and with the help of Gil Kane’s superbly detailed artwork, the comic version of the Brooklyn Bridge looks just like the real thing we see every day.