One of our favorite men’s magazines, HERO Magazine is back for Summer/Fall 2012 with fantastic new face Arthur Gosse glowering in Givenchy with those unforgettably covetable nose rings from the F/W 12 collection. The theme for issue 7, DARK+STORMY will come with a collector’s special edition slipcase, only 25 of which will be available for purchase worldwide at select locations. Interviews with Calvin Klein’s Italo Zucchelli, Dior Homme’s Kris Van Assche and stories by Paul Jasmin, David Armstrong and Danielle Levitt make this issue a must buy.

MDC visitors have the chance to win one of five limited edition DARK+STORMY slipcase copies – by tweeting why they should win them @models @hero_magazine with the hashtag, #hero7limitededition; the winners will be announced on Monday May 7th.

For our friends in the Far East, Hero comes out with their first Chinese and Japanese editions. To purchase the issue, click here.

Photography Fabien Kruszelnicki, styling by Elizabeth Fraser-Bell, hair Teiji Utsumi, model Arthur Gosse

DARK+STORMY collector’s special edition slipcase

Hero Magazine, in a few short issues, has become a fresh and exciting voice on the men’s scene. Previewed here exclusively on models.com, Hero #4 features Prada men’s opener, the broodingly beautiful Luka Badnjar on a striking cover by Alessandro Dal Buoni, styled by Andrew Davis. We chatted with James West andFabien Kruszelnicki, editors-in-chief of Hero about the new issue.

mdc: What has evolved the most for you in terms of the magazine?

JW/FK: It’s all happened so fast! Probably the biggest evolution is how quickly things have grown, from just selling in the UK with a few abroad for issue 1.. it’s now sold pretty much in every country. We’re really happy and honoured to have lots of our favourite photographers and stylists approach us to ask about getting involved which means a lot. Even people asking us to do ‘HERO layouts’ with their stories and not being too precious with their images… everyone involved is really excited about it which makes it so much fun to work on.

mdc: The NY Times just came out with an article on the return of the “Man”. We felt your last issue with Isaac Weber on the cover already reflected that return to the more classic ideal of beauty. What do we have to look forward to in this issue with the type of models featured?

JW/FK: When we were thinking about making HERO we really wanted to do something optimistic, energetic and youthful and real. Whether the guys are athletic or more editorial we wanted their personalities to come through and for them to be real because so much fashion imagery is kind of disconnected. The whole 90s thing of big supermodels with big personalities – real fashion icons and names – is great and we wanted to get some of that excitement and connection back into the pages. This issue has lots of guys from London so there are lots of individual characters… we did one shoot in NYC though with Nacho Alegre featuring Eric Watts. That’s something pretty amazing you can look forward to!

mdc: Any chance of a “Heroine”?

JW/FK: Haha, not right now, but we’ll see…