A Panther and his Pistols

I've been rereading Priest's "Black Panther" series recently, and when I reached the last year of the title (when the main character became NYC cop Kasper Cole instead of T'Challa), I noticed something about the covers. Something that made "Ultimate Spider-Man"s covers look innovative by comparison:





Eleven issues, and every single one is a pin-up featuring the Black Panther posing with handguns (actually, #54 has him posing with a long-barrelled gun). No hint towards content, no characters other than BP himself, and even the backgrounds don't mean anything. Marvel insisted on altering the Panther's title, and then never OKed a cover that gave much of a hint toward that new direction.

A consumer might notice that the Panther didn't previously wear a trenchcoat and carry guns, but the covers wouldn't tell him that there was a new character under the cowl. It's little wonder that the new direction only lasted a year.