Alex Ross's Thoughtful Homage

The homage was subtle enough that it's taken me years to connect the dots.

Alex Ross painted the above masterpiece to commemorate the 9/11 tragedy and of course I liked it as soon as I saw it. But I did not until this very week realize that the painting is a clever homage to the 1944 cover to Big All-American #1.

I am not the only one to draw this parallel but the connection did escape quite a few observers. I see there were discussion boards where debate raged as to whether Superman's "Wow" enhanced or deterred from the impact of the piece, but only someone not aware of the original source material would question the word balloon's inclusion.

Below, for comparison,  is the Big All-American cover. More accurately, this is Jeanette's wonderful animation of that iconic cover (and please take a look back here for a reminder about all that). Here is one more iteration I found of the same design, just for a chuckle. Okay, here's just one more.