I looked over the AD&D Players Handbook recently and was struck with how much nostalgia and memories I had for the pictures. That Paladin in Hell on the edge of a cliff fighting demons. The thieves prying gems from idol eyes on the cover.

Which images are the coolest, most memorable for you from V&V?

Here are some of mine, to start:

-Force and Mr. Magnum character profile images from the first Force scenario

-Most of Willingham's Death Duel art

-Pharaoh guy on page 5 of the 2nd edition rules

-Manta Man from Crisis

Front and back cover of Crisis at Crusader Citadel

Cover of Rules Box Set

Front Cover of 2nd edition Rules

Sword carrying hero in rulebook

Nomad and Mammoth in rulebook (Not crazy about Nomad as a character but those two as combined artwork really resonate with me)

Cover of Opponents Unlimited

Manta-Man and Mocker in Crisis (really all of Crisis character artwork)

The whole panel series which starts with Empress setting off an explosion in Force

Clamor full body pose in Force

The Syn-tech heroes in Assassin

All of Death Duel with Destroyers

The Midnight Men group drawing in Organized Crimes

Doctor Foom wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 10:51am:


One of the most iconic V&V images to me is, ironically enough - not in a V&V book, but in the Living Legends rulebook.  I don't know how many of you have seen it, but it's got a picure of Spyder (weilding a kick ass sword) and is a full-page Jeff Dee masterpiece!

The Cougar wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 8:52am:


I don't know if many people know this, but we discovered (way back in the 80's, when we spent literally hundreds of hours at our local Copy Mart) that if you enlarged the images of each of the Crushers (and Crusaders) from that module they looked even more amazing.

It made us think that the images were probably shrunk down before they were originally put in the book.  Usually when you enlarge an image it gets a bit more blurry and less defined.  But these got more defined and clearer when they were enlarged (and were the only ones that did that, IIRC).

I canna see it!

Thanks for posting, polarboy!

I fixed the title (though I wasn't the one who put it up there) so that it now references Freedom Eagle.

No idea who he is - but check the inside of the rulebook - maybe a name will fit.

My favorite cover is the front cover of FORCE - and the back is awesome as well.

The reason: there is no action pose - yet EVERY character crackles with energy. It looks SO much like the cover of a comic  - short word balloon and all - that I fell in love with it and re-did it for GuardianCon.

I also REALLY dig the 'half-page' that Jeff did in the rules above "Random Encounters' - the "I am Death Incarnate, Protectors!" panels.

Also: MAJORLY dug the art on the interior of FORCE where Empress has blown up several gas drums!

[I say the above because I did not own the Bill Willingham modules - a bud of mine did. I was terrifically impressed with that artwork as well, but I saw my module art more.]

Oh - perhaps the absolutely most iconic V&V image of all time:

Gauntlet standing on guard beside the Table of Contents!