19 Covers (Plus 1 Comic Ad) Featuring or Paying Homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man
Quoth the Wiki:
“The Vitruvian Man… is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in a circle and square…
“The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De Architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture. Vitruvius determined that the ideal body should be eight heads high. Leonardo’s drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect.”
Because of the image’s association with ideal proportions, it has since become a symbol of the quest for the perfectly proportioned body, and in a broader sense the quest for perfection itself.
The circle and square are also seen as symbols of the eternal realm (circle) and the limits of material existence (square), and the way in which the body fits inside both shapes is a symbol of the human body’s perfect marriage of body and spirit.
In more recent times, those ideas of perfection and “perfect marriage” have led some comic artists to use The Vitruvian Man when they’re in need of a visually appealing way to present a subject as a model of perfection, or as a perfect marriage of two seemingly opposing ideas (like flesh and machine).
Or hell, maybe they just wanted an excuse to give Spider-Man eight limbs: