Inspired by The Lost 100-Pagers and Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues, I've decided to create my own take on comic book covers. These are all-original art illustrated by me, Reno Maniquis. Thank you and a good afternoon. Excelsior!

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

The Dynamic Do-over

 


Out with the old, in with the… old? Powerman and Owlman, as far as I know, made one appearance each. Well, Powerman made two if you count the time his story was reprinted in the Bronze Age. Powerman was a robot built by Superman to fool Batman and Robin into not helping him out on a case because he thought it was too dangerous for them. Owlman, on the other hand, was Robin who was artificially accelerated into adulthood by fumes from a box that Superman found in outer space. So, yeah, it’s your typical Silver Age shenanigans from the World’s Finest team.

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Santa’s Baby?

 


I really hope people get the joke in this post. 😁 Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, whichever you prefer!

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Alison’s Blare

 


Would Dazzler have been more successful if the planned multimedia venture between Marvel and Casablanca Records had pushed through? I wonder who would have played Dazzler in real life? They would also have needed to sing her songs. What would the songs have sounded like?

Marvel would apply the same tactic again a decade later with Nightcat. But that failed miserably. So maybe Dazzler’s future wouldn’t have been too different, after all?

Friday, November 28, 2025

Hawk Two… Ah!

 

No other DC character has been screwed up more post-Crisis than Hawkman. I have never been interested in the character until I gave the 2002 series (by Geoff Johns and Rags Morales) a shot. Johns successfully cleaned up the mess, in my opinion.

On another note, I find the Zuggernaut to be quite funny. It’s clearly a blatant rip-off of a Xenomorph in appearance, plus the name is just Juggernaut with a Z, which makes no sense.

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

KatDog


 Pilipino Funny Komiks (or just simply Funny Komiks) was the staple for Filipino kids growing up in the late 1970s up until the 1990s or even until the early 2000s.

Superkat and Superdog were two of their most famous characters, although the Superkat serial ended before the Superdog one began, so they never really got the chance to crossover with one another. I remember Superkat would often fight various evil giant robots, since it came out at the time when Japanese Super Robot anime was very popular in the Philippines.

Thursday, November 6, 2025

With Sword and Lance

 


It’s amusing in comics how wearing a blonde wig alters your appearance so much that people can’t tell it’s you when you remove it, like in the case of Black Canary who’s a natural brunette.

But I guess it’s the same conceit that lets Superman hide behind a pair of glasses, or Oliver Queen with his distinctive facial hair hide behind a tiny domino mask.

Thursday, October 23, 2025

G Spotting

 


These two licensed properties overlapped at Marvel for a few months, but it was a missed opportunity not to have them cross over with each other. Maybe if Marvel had held onto the Godzilla license for a while longer, we would have gotten it. Or maybe not, if Toho or Mattel had any objections.

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Men in Black


 I think most people like the yellow and black outfit for the Black Hood, but for me personally I like this design better. And I just realized while drawing this that his mask must have taken inspiration from Diabolik. On the other hand, I prefer the Fox with his yellow emblem on his chest. The all-black outfit that Red Circle used in the 1980s looked too plain.

Thursday, October 9, 2025

Action Figures

 


This one’s an homage to the cover of DC’s Captain Action no. 3, but with Lady Action instead of Action Boy. Lady Action was introduced in the revived series from Moonstone Books, and I’ve drawn quite a nunber of her adventures for them. I don’t think she’s turned up anywhere else. Here’s hoping that the Captain Action family returns someday.

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Elders of the Lost Ark


It would have been nice to see Ke Huy Quan reprise his role in the the last Indiana Jones film, given his resurgence in popularity around the same time as that film’s release. But, yeah, I don’t think the Indy producers were prescient enough to know that he’d be relevant again with the surprise hit Everything Everywhere All At Once.