Eddie — Iron Maiden's Mascot
Every Iron Maiden release has its own Eddie. This is the run of them, era by era, with a gallery of artwork behind each one. The story of where he came from is on the home page.
He has been painted by several artists over the years:
- Derek Riggs, who created the character and painted every cover from the debut in 1980 through No Prayer for the Dying in 1990
- Melvyn Grant, from Fear of the Dark onwards
- Mark Wilkinson, on the most recent studio albums
- Hervé Monjeaud, on more recent artwork
Beyond the albums he turns up on singles, tour posters, programmes, shirts and the band's own airplane. This archive collects that artwork era by era.
Eddie era by era
Every release below has its own gallery. Pick an era to see the covers, singles, posters and rarities from it.
Iron Maiden (1980)
Eddie is revealed! Loose on a East End street at night, based on the area in London where Derek lived at the time.
Killers (1981)
Eddie caught in the act, axe in hand and victim at his feet, aslso based on a real street in London.
Number of the Beast (1982)
Eddie works the Devil like a puppet while the Devil works a smaller Eddie — the cover that got the band burned in effigy.
Piece of Mind (1983)
Lobotomised and chained, straitjacketed and angry.
Powerslave (1984)
Eddie as a towering monument, carved into a temple the size of a mountain and depicted as a seated pharaoh/sphinx
Live After Death (1985)
Eddie struck by lightning as he hauls himself out of his own grave.
Somewhere in Time (1986)
Cyborg Eddie against a neon city, the cover we still comb through for the jokes, references and other stuff buried in the background.
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)
A mystical, hovering Eddie in a cold, surreal, and minimalist landscape.
No Prayer for the Dying (1990)
Eddie coming out of a grave again, this time with a hand round the throat of the man who dug him up.
Fear of the Dark (1992)
Eddie grown into a tree, the first cover not drawn by Derek Riggs.
The X Factor (1995)
The most gruesome of them all: Eddie opened up on a slab.
Virtual XI (1998)
A fiery Eddie emerging from a proper dystopian hellscape to reach for an oblivious boy wearing a virtual reality headset.
Brave New World (2000)
Eddie's face in the clouds above a future London, marking the return of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith.
Dance of Death (2003)
Eddie leading a masked procession, from a cover its own artist asked not to be credited for.
A Matter of Life and Death (2006)
Eddie in uniform on a tank, surrounded by skeletal soldiers, for the band's most direct record about war.
Somewhere Back in Time (2008)
The compilation that took the tour back through the eighties, with the Powerslave pyramid front and centre again.
The Final Frontier (2010)
Eddie as an alien or something, on another planet, on another Melvyn Grant cover.
Maiden England (2013)
The Seventh Son-era ice Eddie, brought back for the tour and the video release that carries the same name.
The Book of Souls (2015)
Eddie remade as a Mayan figure, painted by Mark Wilkinson for the band's first double studio album.
Legacy of the Beast (2018)
The tour built out of the mobile game, where the set moved through era after era and a different Eddie met the band in each one.
Senjutsu (2021)
Eddie as a samurai, armoured and still, for a record that took three years to reach anyone after it was finished.
Future Past (2023)
The tour that put Senjutsu next to Somewhere in Time, so the samurai and the cyborg shared a stage.
Run for Your Lives (2025)
The fiftieth-anniversary run, and the first tour with Simon Dawson on drums after Nicko McBrain stopped touring.
Ed Force One
Not artwork but an airplane: the band's own 747 in full Maiden livery, flown on tour by Bruce Dickinson.
Merch
Maiden Beer, Maiden wine, Maiden coins, and all sorts of other Maiden stuff.
Eddie en Español
Spanish-language releases from the eighties, from Argentina, Spain, Mexico and beyond.