Greatest DC and Marvel House Ads

This is “I Saw It Advertised One Day,” a feature where I take a look at old comic book advertisements that interested me for whatever reason.

Today, we look at a collection of thirty of the greatest Marvel and DC house ads from the past.

One of the very best house ads was a pair of ads by the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz that helped promote Power Man and Iron Fist. They were rare examples of house ads where one ad would help set up the other ad…

This fascinating house ad introduced two distinct new titles that Marvel was trying out in 1961. A more “sophisticated” science fiction series called Amazing Adult Fantasy (which, come on, totally sounds like a porn comic) and a superhero title, the Fantastic something or other. Amazing Adult Fantasy, of course, would eventually turn to superheroes itself for its final issue (involving some sort of Spider-teen).

This Alan Davis ad for Fall of the Mutants is one of the most famous pieces of comic book art ever designed solely for an ad…

These Watchmen ads were great little snippets into the minds of the characters. This Rorschach one even has a quote that did not exist in the series itself…

Michael Golden helped promote the then-upcoming Micronauts series with this sort of guerilla house ad…

Dark Knight Returns was advertised with this very cool house ad…

It continued with the ad for the series later on, post-Carrie Kelley introduction…

Marvel fans of 1986 certainly are familiar with this house ad…

Rom’s introduction to the Marvel Universe was promoted with this great house ad…

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman was promoted nicely in this distinct house ad…

DC’s house ads of the late 1950s were all pretty much the same, but this Justice League one was still very cool….

Mike Zeck channeled Bruce Lee with this memorable Shang Chi house ad…

Byrne and Claremont’s X-Men run was quickly promoted using this impressive house ad. Marvel must have seen some awesome returns on the sales on Byrne’s first few issues…