Rolling Stone released a statement Wednesday defending its decision to put Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of its August 2013 issue. 

The respective issue, which will hit newsstands on Friday, features an image of the suspected terrorist above the bolded headline "The Bomber." The subhead states the inside cover story will reveal "[h]ow a popular, promising student was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam, and became a monster." 

Many criticized the publication for choosing an alleged bomber for its magazine, which recently featured actor Johnny Depp, the cast of This is the End and the band Daft Punk. Retailers threatened to boycott the August issue, but Rolling Stone said it put Tsaenaev on the magazine cover to respect journalistic standards of reporting on all relevant and current news.

"The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone's long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day," the magazine's editors wrote in a statement Wednesday. "The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens."

The publication posted the full-length cover story along with its statement defending the cover. 

Some retailers, including Walgreens, CVS and Tedeschi Foods, vowed to remove the issue, out Friday, from their shelves. The Rhode Island-based CVS released a statement on its Facebook page Wednesday that read, "As a company with deep roots in New England and a strong presence in Boston, we believe this is the right decision out of respect for the victims of the attack and their loved ones." 

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