Chess: Jim Lee's Cover Art for Batman (1940) #619

Jim Lee & Scott Williams' Cover
for Batman (1940) #619

Visual metaphors can become tired and repetitive, but I find a great one (with beautiful art and specific details) can make up for the reuse of the, perhaps, overly familiar construct.

Case in point is this 2003 cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams that depicts the Batman universe of villains and heroes as pieces on a chessboard.

Even though the chess metaphor has been presented innumerable times across a variety genres and mediums, it still has the power to convey a ton of content.

Here the Riddler is the chess master positioning the players on the board. He is moving Hush (the titular villain of the collection in which this issue falls) into position to take on the Batman chess piece at the front of the image.

Batman is in a "ready-for-action" pose, but he is face forward as if blind to all the peripheral pieces on the board as well as to the arrival of the Hush chess piece.

The cover artwork's metaphor basically functions as a plot summary for the content of the issue (including potential spoilers).

Lovely details include the custom text on Joker's T-Shirt ("I killed Jason Todd, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt") and the postures of the female villains. Poison Ivy is seductive with her chest out and her hand on her hip.

Catwoman is crouching like, well, a predatory feline (while also somehow managing to stick her chest out), and Harley Quinn has her signature boardwalk carnival mallet (yet she, too, is turned incidentally, I'm sure, to reveal her ass and chest at the same time).

Seriously, though, Catwoman is revealed as an ally of Batman given the color of her chess piece's base (gold like Batman's while the villians' bases are all silver).

I find this cover to be a very effective use of chess as a visual metaphor.