I was never that big into variant covers. I fell in love with comics in the 80’s, and was then heartbroken during the 90’s when gimmicks, speculators, and reckless rockstar artists ruined the comics retail biz. (I’m okay now; me and comics are back together now for the long haul.) So in recent years, when incentive covers and con exclusives became highly sought after, with prices commensurate with quality art and small print runs, I didn’t really pay attention.
Until my brother got back into comics.
Growing up, my little bro loved him some Iron Man. And I encouraged his four-color fanaticism as bet as I could, but from high school on, his interest waned. I fed him trades on the regular — superhero stuff for birthdays, maybe Vertigo collections on Christmas — but despite minor upticks in engagement around the Warren Ellis and Matt Fraction eras, nothing stuck.
When Marvel kicked off its “Fresh Start” with a boatload of open-order variants for Tony Stark: Iron Man, I emailed my brother with a “collect them all” taunt, fully expecting to be calmly rebuffed. Much to my surprise, he told me to order him one of each. Later that year at SDCC he discovered incentive variants by the likes of David Aja and Alex Ross and, well… he was hooked. (Not just on variants either; little bro is reading comics again. So proud.)
So what does this have to do with my check-in on week six of Marvel’s War of the Realms event?
Well, when my brother started seeking out interesting variants, it spurred me to do the same. There is an infectious nature to enthusiasm (one of our guiding principles) that I am happy to foster. Also, part of me hated that he had some super-rare exclusives and I didn’t. So for the better part of a year now, I’ve been dutifully building my own collection of variant covers and, given my commitment to go all-in on War of the Realms, it made sense to add as many of those to my shortboxes as well. And since Marvel knows me (and kindred obsessives), they’ve been releasing a number of “connecting” variants: you can’t have just one variant in a series of connected variants, obviously. War has been no exception. Who wouldn’t want to collect all ten of those Yggdrasil-mapping covers?!
Anyway… so I called around for this week’s connecting variant for Greg Pak and Gang Hyuk Lim’s New Agents of Atlas #1 and discovered, to my mild surprise, that is was selling for quite a bit more than previous variants in the series. Upon further review, and a tour around eBay, it so happens that all the incentive covers for this book are in high demand, with the virgin Mico Suayan variant going for upwards of $500!
Character first appearances usually play a factor when prices escalate like this, and the first issue of Pak’s new all-Asian Atlas team has a few, including the first appearance of Filipino superhero Wave.
The Institute of Idle Time 