Variants be Damned

[Tnerb]

Or What if the Insides were different?

 

More times than not I am happy with the normal cover a comic book comes out with. At times I might buy a variant if it's the same price. A little before the NYCC I purchased a few variants at a heftier price hoping for 9.8's. One could only be a 9.6 and I never should have tried, but with a double signature, it might make a collector happy.

 

In the nineties the variant craze blossomed. Gold variants, gold covers, and early 3D covers piqued my interest. The best one was Harbinger Zero, the pink edition. Some of those books I still own and have thought about sending them to CGC for grading, but a variant I would truly love to see is when the inside and between the back and front cover would tell different stories.

 

Could this be possible. Could an X-Men book with eight characters in issue one meet up in issue there after they were split into four hero groups in issue two. Seriously, how cool would that be to buy a book, brag about it, and then realize as you discuss it, there's another issue two. Then maybe in issue four they separate again and return in issue five and the whole time the cover stays the same but the artwork and story vary. I truly believe this could be done, don't you?

 

What are your views on variants? Are you sick of them? Are they great? Or even overrated?

 

Thanks for Reading

 

Tnerb

 

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[XXXPHOENIX]

Variants are the curse of this (comic) age. I think many collectors (me included) have stopped buying modern books because of this.

These variants are artificially rare items made only to steal money from collectors and completists.

 

And people wonder why most comic books sell 10.000 copies nowdays...

They are not collectible items anymore!

 

And please bring back Romita, Kirby, Byrne, Adams, Ditko -LIKE artists, we are tired of MANGA-LIKE, COMPUTER COLOURED books drawn by amateurs!!!!

 

FEDERICO - ITALY

[DavidTheDavid]

I'm usually of the mindset that variants are just a scam to get my dough, but for the Adventure Time comics, I just flat out love some of the covers that have been done for the variants, so for numbers 1-10, I did pick up covers A through D. Just some lovely stuff there.

[meshuggah]

With variants I tend to pass on them unless I really like the art or are the same price. I have bought a few expensive ones. But this is rare for me. I do hate that it seems like every issue has to have a bunch of variants. Especially during crossovers/events. Like WD 115 that just came out with 10 variants. They were all interconnecting, cool looking and cover price. But do we really need 10 variants for 1 book.

 

Superman Unchained #4 just came out yesterday and so far I'm pretty sure each issue has had at least 4 variants. I don't get it. I picked up a variant for #1 which is on its way back from CGC today. I picked this one up because I really love the art of Lee Bermejo.

 

To open another can of worms. Lets discuss things being watered down by new #1's every other month. I love Marvel and they are predominantly what I pick up. But the fact that they are putting out new #1's of books that are only in the teens or 20s for issue numbers is stupid. Its a quick cash grab like variants to boost sales temporarily. I'm going to continue to get the books I get. Maybe I'm just old shool and actually enjoy seeing high issue numbers.

[kaholo1256]

I love the thrill of the chase so for me Variants it is. With the likes of my Avengers vs X-Men Set having found the 1:100's, 1:200's, Con variants, Store variants, and even a few Argentinian variants when i go for a set I truly go all out. That being said I am at the point where it isn't the monetary value that is frustrating me but the every issue has a variant for variant sake issue that is getting on my nerves.

 

I have gotten picky about variants as of late. I will continue to collect them for my two other core series, All New X-Men and Cable and X-Force but aside from them will simply hold off unless I really love the art or artist.

 

But yeah, how about those number one's...

[JollyComics]

I was at 2012 C2E2 (Chicago) and felt vibrant going on at the ambiguous Marvel booth which was equivalent to 4 or 6 booth spaces. I was not paying attention to that but I realized they were selling Avengers vs X-Men set.

 

Two weeks later, I decided to see if there were any hottie books on ebay like Avengers vs X-Men. It was hot for about a month before it got cool off. Nothing was going on those books. I didn't see any demands so far.

 

I know ASM #678 is still a hot demand. I bought it for 79 dollars off Amazon and just missed the good deal for $39 by one day later but it is still a good deal. This book is in NM condition that would range $300 to $900. Also, I own several ASM #583 Obama variants 1st to 4th printing. It doesn't matter to me even Obama is not popular but the history. Now, I am pursuing Superior Spider-man #20 Campbell variant.

 

Why am I still pursuing variants while I am not pursuing other variants? I have faith in ASM and SSM. I passed WD #115 variants too many of them after I learned about the value on WD #100 variants that still plummet. It is too expensive to buy the variants but I am willing to buy ASM and SSM variants because you won't see them on ebay that often. WD variants and Avengers vs X-Men variants can be found on ebay easily. I heard about Thief of Thieves being in the movie so I gambled to buy doubles of ToT series and few variants. ToT may be not impacted like WD. The comic books are nowadays are expensive.

 

Those comic companies are plotting to make the big sales on the variant copies like they came to C2E2 with the BIG exciting things for the fans. Some of them were hoping to make big bucks on the copies. However, Saga #1 RRP was a big hit at the same convention in the same year that I missed the chance to own.

 

It is always unpredictable. Win or lose.

[kaholo1256]

Yep, so far I have had many hit's and many I'll keeps. After posting on here about an ASM #700 1:200 variant and how I was getting it signed I was offered a cannot refuse price for it. That one was stupid hot for a minute and still has a good amount of value to it. I still have a few others that need to be graded as well but for the most part variants are all about the hunt for a deal with me. If I can buy low and put them into my collection and they are relevant to me then I am all for it, but as you pointed out most of them are simply inflated by that initial its cool factor and sink like a rock after.

[mzhammer]

I think it was PBS last night that we stumbled upon a history of Comic books special and there was some really interesting info & interviews... I'm curious... They talked about all kinds of things and how some books sold millions of copies... like death of superman, x-men #1 sold like 8 million copies... etc..

 

Now today, it is almost impossible to sell like a 100,000 copies of a book.. I wonder... how many are they printing today, compared to history? And when it comes to Variants, how many are really out there? I like the variants myself, but feel it is WAY overdone. GOTG had like 20 covers for #1... Personally, if you make 20 covers, my favorite will probably be a variant... it's the odds... and if you've got something that is say 1:200... how many did they actually print? how many are actually out there...? It's like Stan Lee's signature... I see a $20 book no one wants sell for $100 - 120 w/ his signature these days, and he's probably signed his name more than anyone on the planet, throughout history.

 

There's a good question... How many times has Stan Lee signed his name?

[meshuggah]

I have to agree with the GOTG #1 statement, there are so many. I should mention that my current order that's enroute my house has 2 copies of the phantom variant cover in it. 1 for me and the other for a friend for Christmas.

 

I would like to know how many of the 1:100 and above actually do get made for these books. With Marvels phantom variants they've said they release 3000 of these for each one. It would be nice to know how many Stan signatures are out there. Its got to be some ridiculous number.

[XXXPHOENIX]

Many friends of mine simply quit the hobby for the impossibility to collect titles that have infinite variants per each issue... (i.e. Amazing Spider-man...)

 

Collectors want them all...and many prefer to quit the hobby if grabbing all issues (and each variant is considered a different "item") becomes close to impossible....otherwise we would just be just readers, or not???

 

Federico

[newshane]

As a Spawn collector, I can't stand variants. I've really struggled with the decision to keep buying them. The only reason that I'm continuing is because I'm a completest. That's a character flaw I'll have to work on.

 

But seriously, the BW variants are getting sooooooo old. So played out. They aren't even interesting anymore.

 

I think variants can be awesome if they only happen once every few years. But the constant dealer variants - designed to inflate sales of crappy comics (yes, like Spawn ) - are getting out of control. ENOUGH!

 

It just frustrates me because in the 90s Todd McFarlane was known partially for his stance regarding gimmick covers...Spawn didn't use ANY gimmick covers or variants for the first 60+ issues. Now everything is a gimmick. Getting really sick of it...but I feel compelled to soldier on in the name of hope.

[DavidTheDavid]

With Adventure Time, I decided I'd get all the covers for issues 1-10. For 11-20, I'll probably pick up as I can if I run across them cheap. I found two #19 variants online today, lower than buying direct from Kaboom and with free shipping. So ya, I picked them up, but I'm not actively pursuing the remainder.