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Other Comic Books
- Sort of parodied in PS238, when the students start forming their own super-teams—most kids wind up in three or four different groups, mostly as "beta teammates." This is mostly presented as a cliquey popularity thing.
- Issue #58 of The Powerpuff Girls (DC run) features a cover with the girls wearing 3-D glasses and Him coming out of the TV, hypnotizing the girls. Neither story in the issue features Him, nor do they entail the girls getting hypnotized.
- Spoofed on the very first cover of Animaniacs, which featured Pinky and the Brain dressed in costumes they wore in a story later in the comic. (It could be argued, of course, that Pinky and the Brain are the most popular Animaniacs characters; but since they're not the main characters, you wouldn't expect to see them on the cover of the first issue.) The spoof part comes from Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, who "tear" their way through the front of the cover so that Yakko can complain "Whose comic is this, anyway?!"
- Donald Duck is on most of the covers of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Somewhat fair, since he also probably has at least one story in every one of them, but there are a few times where the cover art in question is actually from a story that isn't actually published in said issue.
- The Scandinavian Disney trades, which didn't start printing home-produced material until the late 90s, could always be counted on to feature Duck Avenger on the cover if he made the slightest appearance in the book. Amusingly enough, he appears more often than ever nowadays, but has only had two cover appearances in 20 years. His popularity dropped. This is because the Scandinavian trades only ever put Donald Duck's name in the title anymore (as mentioned above), no matter who are the main characters of the stories inside.
- Brazil offered an inversion, as only in issue 27 of the Donald Duck comic there was a José Carioca story, even if the parrot had appeared in all but two of the covers that far.
- The Knights of the Old Republic comics are set ~4000 years before A New Hope. Yet, the cover of issue 25 has Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Cade Skywalker on it. Granted, they appear, although in a vision.
- IDW Comics clearly hoped that they could do this in their Transformers comics with new character Drift. They even said as much.
- The cover◊ of Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #34 parodies this, with resident rule stickler Ultra Magnus (who does not appear in the issue) appearing on the cover... and giving a warning that under the Autobot Code, putting a character on the cover who does not appear in the comic is considered a crime, and that for purchasing the issue, you will be charged as an accessory.
- The cover
- Some variant covers for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) prominently feature popular background ponies from the show. Two covers feature Time Turner decked out in Doctor Who Shout Outs implying the first Story Arc is an epic crossover, one of them for an issue with no background ponies much less Time Turner and the other flat out having the TARDIS on it. He does appear in the first issue, but only as an incidental pony with no allusions to Doctor Who (just like in the show). A particularly egregious example is the alternate cover to Friends Forever #14 that depicts Spike and Princess Luna in a fierce battle against massive dragons, with the actual issue not featuring any battle whatsoever, or massive dragons, and barely even Princess Luna. Another big offender is Vinyl Scratch, who shares a cover with Applejack for Issue #1 (the only BG pony to appear on one of the Mane Six covers by Andy Price) and appears by herself or with others on later covers. Like Time Turner she does appear in the first issue, but as an incidental character.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- Sonic appears on the cover of the first issue of Sonic Universe, despite not actually appearing in the issue other than a brief flashback.
- Sonic would appear in the corner of nearly every Archie-published spinoff that didn't focus on him, varying between functioning as a stylised issue number (such as the Tails and Princess Sally miniseries), or simply there to point out that this comic book with Sonic characters was a Sonic comic. Later issues of the Knuckles the Echidna ongoing, published after the Adventure redesigns began, even altered the title to become Sonic the Hedgehog Presents: Knuckles the Echidna.
- A downplayed example with the Sonic the Hedgehog: Tangle & Whisper miniseries - while Sonic himself doesn't appear, shapeshifting villain Mimic spends a chunk of the first issue disguised as him to lure out the protagonists and trick them into potentially fighting each other.
- To further capitalise on their comic-strip mascots, The Brown Shoe Company ventured into the comic book industry with Buster Brown Comics during the 1940s and 1950s which were given away as premiums in shoe stores where retailers could stamp their store's name and address on the cover. Despite Buster Brown and his Pit Bull dog Tige appearing in the covers, most of the (promotional) comic books bearing their likeness feature fairy tales and other children's stories unrelated to Buster's adventures; the issue "Out of This World" however has Buster and Tige featured front-and-centre as the protagonists.
