Pietà Plagiarism/Comic Books
The examples of Pietà Plagiarism in Comic Books listed here are just a brief overview. As citing the numerous examples would take up way too much of this page, here's a nice big list.
Crisis on Infinite Earths #7
The cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 (which serves as this page's image), showing Superman carrying Supergirl's dead body and other heroes lined up in rows behind them, is one of the best known examples in comic books. This variant image is frequently referenced and/or parodied, effectively making the origin of the trope Older Than They Think.
- The final page of Final Crisis #6 has Supes doing it again, this time with Batman's corpse. This has got to be a callback.
- And a drawing by Arthur Suydam of DC zombies has it too, with everyone but Supergirl a zombie, and her with an apple in her mouth.
- Tom Strong #22.
- A cover done for a Guardians of the Galaxy storyline that never actually came to be.
Other examples
- The cover of Uncanny X-Men #136 (Cyclops holding Dark Phoenix) is equally well known; ironically, it wasn't until the next issue that Phoenix died.
- This cover came about five years earlier than the Crisis cover mentioned above, so it's at least passably likely that the Crisis cover was an homage to this one.
- Unless, of course, they were both homages to the same earlier work... which is what this particular trope is all abut.
- Two more X-Men examples, both all-female: The cover of Uncanny X-Men #255 shows Mystique kneeling, holding the body of Destiny in a pietà pose, and that of X-Men Annual #1 (2006) shows Mystique sitting on the ground holding her injured daughter Rogue.
- Subverted slightly in X-Treme X-Men #2, where the villain arranges a dead (at the time) Psylocke and bloody-and-broken Beast in a reversal of the Pietà. Might be calling back to the Dark Phoenix cover, as a good portion of the fandom indulges in Shipping where these two are concerned.
- This cover came about five years earlier than the Crisis cover mentioned above, so it's at least passably likely that the Crisis cover was an homage to this one.
- Likewise, the cover of The Death of Captain Marvel is very explicitly based on the Michelangelo work.
- One of the most notorious examples is from the cover of one of the Teen Titans 'Drug Awareness issues', with Speedy holding an unnamed child.
- Another very famous one comes from A Death in the Family, with Batman holding Jason Todd as Robin's body. This picture.
- Captain Atom probably deserves mention for doing it twice, first on the cover of #8, with Plastique cradling a badly wounded Cap, with bonus points for Cap having a very visible wound in his side, and then inverting that image on the cover of issue #44, with Cap now cradling an unconscious Plastique.
- It's a fictional comic book, but the cover of issue 1 of Rage: Gay Crusader from the US version of Queer as Folk.
- The last issue of the fictional Bluntman and Chronic, from Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, references the Batman example with "the inevitable death of Chronic!".
- Dark Reign had one of these in a promo poster.
- Witchblade #128's cover.
- Issue 217 of Hellblazer literally copied the statue.
- Two-Face holds a drugged and bleeding Batman like this in Batman: Jekyll and Hyde.
- One of the earliest Star Trek: The Next Generation comics had Data cradling Geordi's dead body this way. Then Q resurrects him.
- This cover was a double whammy: Data's not only holding Geordi's dead body, he's also in tears.
- The Avengers: Red Zone Part 5 cover features this with Iron Man holding a very dead Captain America. Note that Tony's angst is so great that even the armor is emoting.
- The "Death of Captain America" plotline has Steve Rogers taking a bullet and collapsing outside the court, only for him to be cradled by Sharon Carter and a federal agent (spoilers) [dead link].
- Marjane in Persepolis recounts how she got into the Iranian art school; in the entrance exam, she drew a copy of Pietà, with Mary replaced by a veiled Iranian woman, and Jesus replaced by a martyr.
- Spider-Man holds Gwen Stacy in this way, in the last panel of The Night Gwen Stacy Died.
- For the Marvel reprints of Elf Quest, a new series of covers was made. Issue 24 also used this pose for Clearbrook and One-Eye.
- A cover of Batman and Son has Batman do this to the Joker
- In All Fall Down, the Ghoul holds Portia this way after rescuing her.
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