Covers Always Lie: Difference between revisions

This trope also applies to [[Music|album covers]], especially singles, which often get their own album art, for one or two songs.

 

 

This has occasionally gotten [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade hung]] on it, as evidenced [[media:Robin64.jpg|here]] and [http://www.thewotch.com/index.php?arcid=31 here].

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

* The ''Emma Frost'' series was a cute teen drama about a younger version of the title character pitched at a mostly female demographic. This was undermined because the covers were pieces of absurd [[Fan Service]] featuring the adult Emma in [http://www.freewebs.com/emma_frost/Emma-Frost-5-new-background.jpeg the skimpier] costume she wore in ''New X-Men'' - and if you're familiar with her time as White Queen, you know that's not an easy bar to reach. (Warning, '''[[NSFW]]'''.)

** A late 80s issue of ''Superman'' lampshaded this with Mr. Mxyzptlk indicating that the cover, a giant sized Superman destroying skyscrapers, probably wouldn't actually happen.

** [[Completely Missing the Point|Number 75 of that list failed to mention that Jimmy Olsen was asked to turn into kryptonite, and yet... he was turning Superman into kryptonite.]]

* In general this frequently is the case when the cover is drawn by a different artist than the one who does the interior art. In most cases, the cover artist is better or at least has a bigger fan base than the interior artists. One of the rare inversions is ''Avengers Annual'' #10 (featuring the first appearance of Rogue), which features brilliant interior art by Mike Golden beneath an uninspired, humdrum cover by Al Milgrom. Talk about hiding your light beneath a bushel!

* The Marvel issue of ''"What If..."'' that dealt with the Fallen Son storyline had a cover of [[Captain America (comics)]] carrying an apparently dead [[Iron Man]] in a dramatically mourning way. The contents of the comic... weren't nearly so touching.

* Most [[World War II]] era [[Marvel Comics]] have Captain America, Human Torch, and [[Sub-Mariner]] having epic battles against the Axis on the cover. The stories themselves though have none of those and are usually about evil Nazi's having their plans for world domination foiled by the heroes.

* Malibu Comics used to have a major villain named Rafferty, whose gimmick was that he came with an editorial promise: [[Tonight Someone Dies|every time he appeared, a superhero would die]]! This led to a slew of issues featuring him, many of which showed him threatening a major character on the cover. Too bad those were hardly ever the characters he actually killed. In fact, in most cases he just killed a random walk-on character who had been created just so Rafferty could off him.

* ''[[Turtles Forever]]'': [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Turtles_Forever_Poster.PNG the original poster] has Tokka and Rahzar, who turn out to be [[Advertised Extra]]s.

* ''[[The Brave Little Toaster]]'' was marketed as much less scary than it actually was. This goes so far that the screencaps on the back of the VHS/DVD are ''not even from the film''. One of them even showed Toaster ''high-fiving'' the Master! (In the film, the fact that they were alive was always kept a secret). The artwork on the back depicts the oh-so-serious waterfall scene, except that the title character has a goofy smile on his face! Oddly enough, the original poster showed three screencaps from the film, two from the [[Nightmare Sequence]] and one from the dark forest scene.

** This is legitimate though, as that is something of a late revelation. It's the same principle as not putting the twist on the front of the ''[[Fight Club]]'' DVD.

* Another Pixar example would be the poster for ''[[Cars 2]]'', which had Lightning McQueen in the center. In the actual film, the real hero is Mater.

* The cover for the teen comedy ''[[Saved]]!'' makes it look like that Mandy Moore is the star of the movie while Jena Malone is a lowly supporting character designed for background space. In actuality, Malone is the star of the movie while Moore is the film's antagonist.

** YMMV - Moore's character's hypocrisy is central to the film, and the school sees ''her'' as the hero. This is hammered home by the drawn-in halo over Moore and horns over Malone

* The [http://d.imagehost.org/0344/new-international-poster-for-the-green-hornet-470-75.jpg international poster] for ''[[The Green Hornet (film)|The Green Hornet]]'' makes it look as though Kato is Green Hornet. The actual hero of the film is a [[Floating Head Syndrome]] off to the side.

** [[Justified Trope|This was intentional]]. Kato is more popular than The Green Hornet in Asia.

** One example that sticks out is the illustration for ''The Caravan from Troon'' in the August 2001 issue of ''Asimov's'' magazine, which depicts a scene from the middle of the high-fantasy story involving a wagon train being attacked by blowgun-wielding hang gliders in a mountain pass with perfect accuracy... except that the illustration shows it as a string of humvee-looking things being attacked by rocket powered hang gliders using mounted lasers in a lunar-looking lifeless landscape!

** This became a sort of tradition for the [[Ender's Game|Ender Wiggin series]].

** This phenomenon is touched on in "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials", a book that very faithfully illustrates numerous aliens from science fiction novels. In one of the introductions, [[Robert Silverberg]] tells how sci-fi magazine illustrations very rarely synched with the contents of the stories they accompanied. He found out why after he became published: illustrators are often given extremely brief descriptions, like "Humanoid alien is being threatened by robot", with no indication of how the story describes the robot or the alien or even if there actually is an alien being menaced by a robot.

** This was done in the past for realistic fiction as well - old Fifties Faulkner paperbacks make them seem like cheap porn novels.

* The books in Steven Brust's [[Dragaera|Vlad Taltos]] series all have a picture of a jhereg (presumably Loiosh) on the cover, and all of them have four legs and wings despite the fact that jhereg are more bat-like than dragon-like.

** Not to mention the occasions when Vlad shows up with Loiosh, always totally clean-shaven instead of sporting his signature mustache.

* One copy of ''[[Casino Royale]]'' (the book) has a picture of a lady in a string dress. As in, a dress made like a [[String Vest]].

** Given that the current covers of Fleming's Bond books are homages to the pulp covers of old, this is hardly a surprise.

 

=== Tabletop Games ===

* The old boxed sets for the Basic version of the Dungeons & Dragons game invariably showed a party of heroes engaged in glorious battle with a dragon of some description. The Basic D&D rules only provided information for advancement up to 3rd level, meaning that if your Basic-level adventurer met up with a dragon of any sort, the resulting [[Curb Stomp Battle]] would wipe you out within a round or two.

 

** There are a ''lot'' of NES and SNES games with anime-style artwork which doesn't look anything like the American box art. This is understandable, given that most Americans didn't even know what anime ''was'' at the time, and certainly not the intended age group for those consoles. For the record, the girl with the big paddle is, in fact, in the game: she's the tennis player boss.

* ''World Series Baseball 2K1'' for the [[Sega Dreamcast]] came on the heels of the ultra-successful ''NBA'' and ''NFL 2K'' (the latter being a system mover in its own right), both developed by Visual Concepts, and ''WSB'' was presented as a sim-like entry along the other Sega Sports entries. However, the gameplay was actually a port of a Sega arcade game, and left the box in blatant lies. It boasted things like hot zones, scouting reports, and weather changes, neither of which were in the game. Also neither in the game were sim-like gameplay and user-controlled fielding, which among other flaws made the game universally panned, and the series was properly handed off to Visual Concepts the next year.

** Done by Rockstar again, in the ad campaign for ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]''. The cover is a fairly inoffensive [[Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You]] of Marston, but posters show prominent illustrations of a Mexican prostitute NPC with no role in the plot to speak of, and super-sexy depictions of Bonnie and Luisa with tons of cleavage, both of whom were pretty but normal-looking in the game.

* The US cover for [[Konami]]'s ''[[Suikoden I]]'' featured what were ''supposed'' to be scenes of various characters from the game; however, they had a completely talentless artist do it, and he rendered them so [[Off-Model]] that they're all hideous and only one or two are even recognizable as being certain characters from the game. Not exactly deceptive, but inaccurate nonetheless, and earns the US version of the game a position among the most awful game cover arts of all time. They get some points for the inexplicable [[Bruce Campbell]] lookalike, mind you...

** Possibly lampshaded by the fact that when you first take command of him, even ''Raiden'' complains about not being Snake. (It was apparently his codename all through training, and he's mildly annoyed about having to ditch it.)

** The cover art of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]: [[Mission Pack Sequel|VR Missions]]'' is nothing more than an image of the Cyborg Ninja, giving the impression that the player will control a good portion of the game as him. However, he's only playable in three of the 300 featured missions.

* The packaging for ''Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery'' for Nintendo DS has [http://consumerist.com/5271127/gamer-tricked-into-buying-lame-ds-dolphin-title-by-erroneous-ad-publisher-dragging-its-fins a blurb describing, and screenshots from, an entirely different game]. Sure, the actual game at least involves dolphins, but everything else is wrong.

* The original NES release of ''[[Super Mario Bros 3]]'' had a screenshot on the back of the package of a level that never made it into the final game (see [http://www.mobygames.com/game/super-mario-bros-3/cover-art/gameCoverId,95697/ here], the second screenshot), leading many players to become quite confused when the level never actually showed up in game play. [http://www.mobygames.com/game/super-mario-bros-3/cover-art/gameCoverId,16094/ Later printings] of the box art corrected this, moving the bottom screenshot to the second place and adding a screenshot from the bonus memory game in its place (which, ironically, featured a grammatical error that was corrected in the ROM at the same time).

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days|Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2]]'' features [[Mickey Mouse]] in the Organization cloak, which leads people to believe he's a prominent figure in the actual game. Instead, he's featured for one cutscene near the game's end, and doesn't even encounter Roxas.

** That scene was also in the trailers, again, hinting it might be important, leading to the Sister Trope, [[Never Trust a Trailer]]. The trailer for this game featured a few other cutscenes like this as they were all from the (few) higher quality ones.

* [[Ubisoft]]'s 'Imagine Happy Cooking' proudly displays a very dull housewife to appeal to grandmothers and boring people alike, coming across as a tired lump of shovelware. Surprisingly, the game itself is a very cutesy Japanese-style visual novel complete with friendship meters and gift-giving, and the cooking games are far more well-made compared to ''Cooking Mama'', as you actually cook three-course meals complete with sides, desserts and dressings.

* In the box art for ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', you see a group of adventurers in level 15-30ish gear taking on a dragon in an outside worldzone, which only happened at level 60 with a full group (40 people). Not to mention that one of the characters is wielding a sword 'Teebu's Blazing Longsword' that is incredibly rare to acquire in game. The original box art for the Burning Crusade also included a picture of a character riding a Nether Drake, something that was not possible until late in the expansion cycle.