Superheroes for Science: Marvel Comic Book Covers Promote STEAM Fields

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur comic book cover
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur appear on the science-themed cover of Marvel's 2016 STEAM variants. (Image credit: Marvel / Joyce Chin)

Marvel Entertainment is kicking off the new school year with a special release of new comic book covers that promote science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) while featuring five of its favorite, classic superhero characters.

The comics will hit the shelves of comic book shops in November. But Marvel has released a sneak preview of some of the new cover art, which you can see in this gallery from our sister site Newsarama

Marvel's STEAM variants include re-creations of its classic characters and superheroes. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur appear on the science cover peering at the cosmos through a dino head-mounted telescope, adding a fun new twist to the Golden Age original, Moon Girl, which was first published in 1947.

Miles Morales, who took over the role of Spider-Man after Peter Parker's death in 2011, dangles from the ceiling using his web-shooters on the technology-themed variant cover. The art-themed variant Champions is based on the 1970s comic books.

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The latest Marvel characters also make an appearance on the new STEAM covers. The math-themed cover features Gwenpool, a character created in 2015 who combines Marvel's classic characters Deadpool and Gwen Stacy, one of Spider-Man's earliest girlfriends. On the engineering cover, female teenage science prodigy Riri Williams takes over the role of Iron Man with a new name, Ironheart.

"Our characters have been exciting fans for ages," David Gabriel, Marvel's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said in a statement. "With our new STEAM Variants, we plan to continue to motivate our fans to explore their passions in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and math and present these disciplines through some of our favorite young heroes who are doing just that ─ following their dreams and preparing for the challenges that await them ahead."

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.