Welcome to Variant Watch where each week I’ll be discussing the new hot variant covers of the week.  As all comic collector’s know, each week on Wednesday Comic book Santa Claus flies around to every comic shop in the world delivering that week’s new comics and there is much celebration.

Now the avid collectors also know that with each shipment of new comics comes a select few variant covers of regular issues.  Why are they special you ask?  No, not because they cost two-to-fifty times that of the regular issues.  Variants are rare and “rare” is a word that comic collectors both love and hate.  When you have a “rare” book you love it.  When you are looking at “rare” books on Ebay and questioning your station in life because you can’t even picture a time when you’ll be able to drop $500.00 on a comic book, “rare” can be an awful term.

Click through the jump to see my picks for Variant Watch!

Hi Yo Variant Watch! AWAY! That’s right VW is back… Whoa, I’ll bet “VW” is pretty heavily trademarked so scratch that last part. (Clearing throat) Ok, Variant Watch returns for another week to help you, the loyal and drop-dead-gorgeous reader, spend their hard earned comic book money wisely. We all know that Variant Comics are cool but not all of them are worth the scratch your comic pusher is asking you, the comic junkie, to scrounge up. But don’t fret comic addicts! Mbomb is here to rub the weekly variants on his well trained gums and tell you which ones are pure as white snow and which are pure schwag. Was that too much JC?  [lol, hell no -Ed.]

OK! Enough drug metaphors! Let’s get to it!

This Thursday’s Variant of the Week:

Universal War One #1 U.S. variant cover by Denis Barjam.

UW1 is going to be hot! Variant or no you need to pick up this book. Great read, great art and if the sales on Marvel’s other Soleil book, Sky Doll, are similar it’s going to go fast. Retailers are scarred of this one mainly due to the $5.99 cover price and the fact that it’s a European comic. This variant was made separately orderable however it is only available in the US not the Europe, where the book is already a hit. Watch for Euro-comic-fans to snatch these variants up as soon as they hit Ebay. Comic-poaching from oversees paired with under-ordering by retailers could make this variant red hot.

This Thursday’s Stinker Variant of the Week:

Conan the Cimmerian #1 50/50 variant cover by Joe Kubert.

First of all I barely consider a 50/50 variant a variant at all. It’s hard to care about 50/50 variants unless the two books join to make one awesome cover. Such is not the case with Conan #1. Nope just two covers equally distributed one by Joe Kubert and one by FRANK FRIGGIN CHO. Now I love Joe Kubert and fully recognize what he’s done for comics. The Guy’s a legend. But honestly, when given the choice of Frank Cho or Joe Kubert who are most fans going to pick? Why not make the Kubert cover a 1:25 incentive cover. Then at least it might be rare seeing as most retailers will probably order less than 20 issues of #1. It’s almost unfair to the guy. Kubert Sr. is a legend in the comics biz but he’s also in his golden years and his pencils, while still good, aren’t what they used to be.

Honorable mention this week goes to Diamond Comics for damaging all the issues of Mighty Avengers shipped to my local shop making the undamaged variant very rare. My hats off to the orangutans working in the Diamond Warehouses.

See You nerds at Batman this weekend!

This is Variant Watch, signing off…

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