A Hero's Journey: Release the Grumpy Bulldog Cut!

Recently I ran out of comic books to read and I didn't feel like writing, so I decided to read a book.  Then just for the hell of it I thought, "Why not read one of my books?"  I decided it'd be better to read a paper book than a Kindle one, so I grabbed A Hero's Journey off the shelf.

Reading it for the first time in a few years, I was reminded of how much stuff I cut out for the eventual published version.  With all this "Snyder Cut" bullshit going on, I began to think that maybe I should edit and release the full version.  Which is not the "original" version. 

The version I released was the third version, or the fourth if you count the graphic novel script I half-ass wrote.  The first version was written in 2009 and I didn't really like it.  To me there seemed to be some plot holes and stuff.  So I did a second version that was first-person from the POV of the ghost Marlin, but that was fraught with all sorts of problems and it would be hard to do that as a series.  But I left it while I wrote the rest of the series.  Then in 2010 I went back and wrote a new version that was 133,000 words because there was a lot of extra stuff, some of which you can find in the Deleted Scenes posted to the blog.  

But when I was trying to get it published I decided to cut it down to a more salable length.  I pared it down all the way to 86,000 words, so that was like 47,000 words cut!  Practically a whole short novel of stuff cut out.  

Reading the shortened version, I think Becky and Lieutenant Donovan got the worst of it as I think a lot of their scenes were cut.  There was also a prologue at the beginning about how the case containing the Black Dragoon armor came to America.

Anyway, I found the original draft of that version and formatted it for an ebook that I'll probably start editing soon.  Then I can make a new paperback of it too.  The paperback I read actually isn't that great.  There are a couple of weird parts where a sentence posted backwards!  !siht ekil sdrawkcab  I'm not sure how that happened, if it was on my end or Amazon's end--or Createspace, whatever it was.  

As part of that of course I want to do a new cover.  I'm sure Rusty Webb is too busy in Bermuda to do a new one for me, so I was trying to do a more traditional one.

Here's one just using some free images:

And here are a couple using paid images.  I haven't bought them yet so they're just previews with the lines and watermark junk on them.

You like any of those?  I could probably find a new background for the three of those; that was just something I had on hand.

And here's a different direction, using a splash page from the teaser comic drawn by Al Sirois:

I'm sure Al wouldn't mind if I use that, though I'd make sure to ask.

Any of those strike your fancy?