Holy shit, I'm gonna have to track down the darker stuff.

Bane was shown breaking Batman's back on a cover during the Knightfall crossover. Heroes are shown in peril all the time on covers.

Exactly. Ive seen more covers with the Justice League laying down beaten up, then charging the cover.

Someone made a fan edit that really changes the cover tho

But as others have pointed out, that cover fit the tone of of the contents inside and was reprentative of what happens in the book.

The current run of Batgirl is more in line with Scott Pilgrim than The Killing Joke.

Alot of variant covers don't fit the tone of the books. The artist Skottie Young is famous for drawing covers featuring "baby" versions of superheroes. His baby superhero covers have appeared on books that contained non-kiddy content on the inside. I would think this would be more offensive - having a kid-friendly cover on a book with more adult content on the inside, rather than vice versa.

Once again, there's an enormous big huge difference between being shown in peril and being shown as a simpering, cowering wreck. In the first case one can still be a hero, in the second one can only be viewed as a victim.

For example, the KnightFall cover you mentioned showed Batman struggling in defiance, not whimpering in defeat.

I don't think anyone honestly expects the Young covers to reflect the interior content. If they do, a quick flip through the book will obviously show otherwise.

The pulled Batgirl cover, however, is entirely plausible as an indicator of the interior content.

Thank you, I had never seen these baby variants before since I guess he does mostly Marvel characters. They are completely adorable.

HE DOES THAT?! ahahahaha. I love those covers.

He did an awesome Spider-Verse promo poster I would love to own, and I'm not even much of a Spider-Man fan.