Posted in: Comics | Tagged:

How Marvel Is Using Virgins to Increase Sales on Return of Wolverine #1

Published Thu, 26 Jul 2018 12:00:54 -0500

Last updated Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:42:41 -0500

Initially, Marvel appeared to be copying their tactic for the launch of Tony Stark: Iron Man with a series of variant covers with different costumes over the years, for their launch of Return of Wolverine. Retailers who ordered the standard cover at 300% or more of their orders of X-Men Red #6 could then order as many copies as they wanted of the X-Force costume cover, the Fang cover, the Age of Apocalypse cover, the Patch costume, the Weapon X costume, the Brown and Tan costume, and the Original Wolverine costume. Then they had a 1:500 variant using old McFarlane Wolverine art and a 1:1000 cover for the same in black and white. Then there was a 1:50 John Cassaday cover, a 1:25 Leinil Yu cover, a 1:25 John Christopher Tyler cover, a Skottie Young cover, an Artists' Party cover, a Premiere cover, and a blank cover.

But it appears that is not enough. And as the comic approaches its Final Order Cut-off date, there is now a rush on additional covers — or rather the existing covers with the company logo and title removed, otherwise known as "virgin" covers. Here are the virgins lined up, and how many copies of the normal covers retailers have to order to get them:

1:1000 Whiskers virgin cover
1:700 Age Of Apocalypse virgin cover
1:600 Weapon X virgin costume
1:500 Patch virgin costume
1:400 X-Force virgin cover
1:300 Brown & Tan virgin cover
1:200 Fang virgin costume
1:100 Current virgin costume