Miles Morales Spider-Man 25 Heroes Reborn Variant cover by Carlos Pacheco

In order to pay homage and celebrate the great career of artist and storyteller extraordinaire, Carlos Pacheco who quite sadly announced his forced retirement this week due to medical reasons, I give you a great cover he drew for the Marvel Heroes Return event.

(These images were first shown as promos for the event to be later on used by Marvel as variant covers).

I had to look it up online, but this is apparently Nighthawk/Kyle Richmond of Earth TRN852. Considering that Nighthawk was a Marvel parody of the JLA when the Squadron Supreme/Sinister was created, this is consequently the BLACK BATMAN of the Mavel Universe (GASP !), coming to a theater or a TV screen near you very very soon !

I love that Carlos played with the usual Batman clichés with this one. Batm...I mean Nighthawk perched on a garg...a tree, the Arkh...I meant Ravencroft asylum, the ominous caped defender of the city pose under a crescent moon and the cherry on the cake as far as I'm concerned, Nighthawk's faithful companion (Nightwing ? Dark Wing ? Wing Dark? Wing Wing ?) feasting on a bat while looking at you, dear reader :D

What great poking fun at the Distinguished Competition which is the second level of reading we get from the piece because, quite frankly, at first glance, it/he simply looks badass.

On a pure skills level, I love the depth he quite subtly introduced to this piece by using fine and delicate crosshatching on the gate in the background. Let's finally note that the piece is extremely well balanced in leaving space for the colorist to do his job.

The most jaded readers or collectors will say that Carlos' prime was Avengers Forever and his JSA/JLA graphic novel. As a close follower of his work since his Spanish fanzine days, I firmly state that he never missed a beat in terms of draughtsmanship and storytelling skills up to the recent superb Arrowsmith volume 2. So thank you for an amazing career and impeccable body of work, Mr Pacheco and the hours of enjoyment that came and will come from reading and studying it. I wish you nothing but the possible best under the current circumstances.

(For those wondering, this is not a prelim but the actual definitive piece produced by Carlos before it was inked on blue lines (see additional picture below), a process I truly do not care about (unless I get both for the same price and maybe not even then). So, this is the only piece worth having regarding this cover IMHO).