From The Archives: Unfinished Variant Cover Rant.
Remastered and sorta remade. Originally meant to be published on Wix, though never finished due to prioritizing other work.
Now, this was pretty much the standard from 19-whenever-comics-were-invented, but up until the 1990's, something strange occurred. You see, comics like the first appearances of Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man started to rocket in value because 1, quantities were limited (Less than 100 copies of Action Comics exist nowadays) and because they were ICONIC characters that were now parts of pop culture... People and companies took the wrong idea from this.
See, the people of the world thought that if you took any comic book and just kept it for a few years, then it would become valuable. So, companies like Marvel and DC started to introduce new characters, add gimmicks to the covers, change iconic designs to look almost unrecognizable, make new first issues, and make lots of variant covers... Here is why this didn't work:
- If you make a billion copies of your comic, it's not gonna be rare unless the men in black go to your comic shop and destroy most copies.
- If you make 2000 characters that are all the same, they're not gonna be remembered and they will be forgotten by history. Just look at Deadpool! No one knows him!
- Variant covers are only rare if you produce limited quantities. And that doesn't always mean they'll be expensive. AND YOU SHOULD NOT MAKE VARIANT COVERS FOR EVERY DAMN ISSUE.
Most of this speculator boom shit stopped around the late 90's. But the comic book industry has not recovered from it, and it shows when you look at Marvel covers nowadays.
But let's look back at a time where I wasn't even born yet, the 1990's. Spider-Man #1 by Todd McFarlane had over 11 covers including 2 misprints. Not including the other 13 variants with the reprints. Just how ICONIC is the cover for this issue? It's just Spider-Man doing a shitty pose!
The other Spider-Man comics either have different illustrations or they have hologram covers. One cover that I really didn't like was the shitty Spider-Man 400 variant cover.
Maybe it looks better in person since I don't own a copy, but when scanned, it looks like just a big gray stain. It's supposed to be a gravestone with Spider-Man's picture on it. Luckily, there is a cover that is actually good out there.
(From Tasteecat Comics)
The covers would slow down around 1999 to 2005. The variants would come back around the Civil War era and the BND era. And even then, the variants would only show up every once in a while, and they would only be ONE PER ISSUE.
Oh, and something crazy happened around the release of issue 666. Beginning of a new sorta-event called Spider-Island. For this issue, Marvel hit up over 100 comic book stores for them to sell specific variants where Spider-Man saves the comic stores! It's actually really neat, but also pretty excessive at the same time. There are a few regular-ass variant covers, and there's 107 Spider-Man reading the newspaper covers and there's also 33 Lizard covers.
So, let's take a look at the variant covers for every issue 1 of every volume of Spider-Man.
VOL 1. 0 Variants. Not counting the variants for the facsimile edition.
VOL 2. 4 Variants. I guess it's okay, this is a new beginning and some covers are rare.
VOL 3. 48 FUCKING VARIANTS. SOME EVEN BEING VARIANTS OF THE VARIANTS. Crazy. I mean, sure, Ultimate Spider-Man 100 had over 100 variants, but that was for charity reasons, and they were also rare. But this? This is after the BND era, their sales are plummeting... Y'know, it shouldn't be hard to sell a Spider-Man comic.
VOL 4. 19 Variants, not as crazy as the 48 fucking variants of the last volume, but it's still kinda excessive.
VOL 5. SIXTY ONE. 61. OH. MY. GOD. How badly is your title selling if you need 61 variant covers?
VOL 6. Everyone is sick of this shit at this point, everyone is sick of bad Spider-Man comics, and they are NOT looking forward to this next volume, so, how many variants does issue 1 have? Will it be more than the last one or less? 69. So, still as excessive and stupid as the last volume. Though if I had to pick my favorite covers, they would definitely be the Eminem variants that were exclusive to his site. Marshall is a huge fan of Marvel and just comic books in general, so he must've been all giddy seeing that he was gonna be in a Marvel comic for the second time! Wonder how he felt when he read the issue.
As of now, I don't know how many covers there's gonna be for the next volume, coming next April.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, here are some of the things you can find in these covers:
- Spider-Man... Likely place for him to be. Most variants show him swinging and stuff. Just so if you think the main cover looks like crap.
- Venom, he hasn't been the villain in a comic for years, but putting Venom in covers, or pretty much anything means it will SELL.
- Homages to better, more memorable covers.
- Disney characters. They tend to add disney characters dressing up as Marvel characters. Fuck Michael Mouse.
- Black Cat, Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy. Yes, Marvel, I'm aware of their large breasts and wide hips, but is your story good? C'mon, guys, set your priorities straight, this is Spider-Man, not a Victoria Secret catalog. Though, I will eventually get every variant featuring the girls wearing Spidey costumes and swimsuits because... Uh... Mind your own business.
- Textless variants. Just when you thought there weren't enough variants, now they make variants of variants without the text, which makes me wonder where they put the barcode.
- Pictureless variants. These are just for you to take to a convention and ask the nearest comic book artist for a little sketch that will be overpriced as hell. This is why I don't talk to comic book creators, what if they ask me for money?
Yes, that pretty much sums it up for Spidey variant covers. They suck. BYE. Shoutout to pecokit.com and spiderfan.org
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