As the beginning of the month at the beginning of the year turns to the dreaded middle of the month at the beginning of the year and then the next month and the rest of the year comes after that and oh my God—
Oh hey, look at that, it’s Tuesday. New forecast? New patch tomorrow? Datamines incoming? Frankly, by the time you’re reading this, I’m probably already too late. So, hello from the past, and don’t mind my catastrophizing at all— we’ve got comic book characters to look at. Boom, forecast!
01/14
Spotlights!
Artists (in order): PANDART STUDIO, Seth Adams, Kai Lun Qu
Source: Spotlight Caches
Luckily (for me), the calm before the storm is here, and so it’s a relatively tame set for the week— be on the lookout for the new patch’s Variant Round-Up later this week for the real meat and potatoes. But for now? We’ve got this week’s spotlights, giving us another PANDART version for our next Dark Avenger, Moonstone! Moonstone is an interesting character because she’s at an intersection of relative obscurity and long history, giving her a wealth of source material to draw from but little that’s really ‘iconic.’ In other words, she’s the perfect audience for a PANDART, which will always give players a version of a character with some appealing, prestige-feeling rendering on it. Seth Adams and Kai Lun Qu also bring their A-game to Black Swan and Nocturne, arguably (for my money) upstaging Moonstone, here. Adams’ Black Swan is dark and moody in all the right ways, calling forward a sick metal album cover from the 90’s as much as it does our beloved 2/3 Black Order member. And Kai Lun Qu brings a Nocturne that’s quickly become one of my favorite pieces from him: something about his painterly style really elevates in the more restrained composition of what looks like a posed portrait you’d see in a museum— just of your favorite alt-multiversal teleporting chaos witch.
Jelena Djurdjevic’s Women of Marvel Hope Bundle
Artist: Jelena Djurdjevic
Source: Bundle
The heavy hitters continue as another variant from Jelena Djurdjevic’s Women of Marvel variant series she did way back— this time, featuring Hope Summers, in a variant originally from Generation Hope (2011) #2. I’m a massive fan of this series— I think the covers Djurdjevic did do a terrific job of chronicling some of the most impactful women to grace Marvel Comics pages, and Hope is no exception. We’ve seen one of these already in her excellent Mockingbird, with a retro, classic costume to underscore how this series is a history. There’s a single knock against this variant, and it’s nothing to do with Djurdjevic’s work— in fact, I think it’s what the SNAP variant omits from the original piece.
There’s something about the little ‘Est. 2007’ tag that really sells the premise of these covers as part of a visual history— and while I understand that plenty of compromises will have to happen when porting over older art to card game templating, missing that little tag does lose something special for me. But what can I say— it becomes just a terrific variant with gorgeous lighting painted by acclaimed artist Jelena Djurdjevic. However will we cope?
Iban Coello’s Misery
Artist: Iban Coello
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Boom, comics heavy-hitter. Boom, comics heavy-hitter! Iban Coello, symbiote superstar, comes next, this time with a SNAP commission for Misery. Perhaps befitting the symbiote with the most recent debut in SNAP, Iban Coello is an artist who’s done symbiote comic after symbiote comic currently on the stands— you can check out some gorgeous, toothy, slimy work in Venom War, just finished recently. But right here? It’s a SNAP original. Coello’s worked on Misery in the comics before, which makes this especially cool— and while it’s perhaps not quite as striking as his comic work (perhaps because it’s made to order for the constraints of a SNAP composition, perhaps it’s just not his strongest piece), it’s still a welcome sight to see another comics veteran getting some original work in SNAP. Sure, insectoid spines are menacing, and glowing red eyes are cool, but making Misery’s head of red hair feel not-awkward and not-like-a-bad-wig is one of the main challenges of the design, and I think Coello clears it here with some motion and dynamic posing.
Helen Jee’s General Shop Debut Kate Bishop
Artist: Helen Jee
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
What I’m saying, guys, is today is a good day. Helen Jee’s pieces are mercifully not exclusive to bundles like they’ve been in so far, as proven by her cute and wonderfully colored Kate Bishop here. There’s so much personality in Kate’s beleaguered stance and posture here, and it’s both really fitting for the character and a great fit for Helen Jee’s simplified, expressive style. Fun as that is, though, the star here is Jee’s coloring, adding a really wonderful paper doll-esque texture and the dark muted colors to really complement it. For a character whose variant roster is strangely underserved from an extensive back catalogue, it’s just as welcome to see such a great original commission.
01/15
ARTTREE STUDIO’S Black Cat Bundle
Artist: ARTTREE STUDIO
Source: Bundle
Fans of ARTTREE STUDIO’s previous work with Mockingbird and Thena will likely enjoy this revisit: a similarly anime-stylized Black Cat, with some impressive composition and dynamic lighting to back it up. It’s definitely the strongest ARTTREE piece so far by my measure; I do really like the night-time atmosphere with the building providing some strong lit contrast, and there’s some real action and urgency generated from everyone’s favorite sultry cat burglar making her getaway (cough, sorry Distinguished Competition). It’s a fine one!
Marcelo Vignali’s Meteorite Costume Moonstone
Artist: Marcelo Vignali/Mooncolony
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Marcelo Vignali gets coloring help from the studio Mooncolony to bring out this part deux for SNAP’s exploration of Moonstone’s history. I love a comics history nod, and I think the reference to her time as Meteorite (on the Thunderbolts, no less) is a great costume to base a commissioned variant on— as much as the original look is a smidgen of an eyesore. Marcelo and Mooncolony as a team really conjure a Hearthstone-esque look here, with rounded edges, soft lighting, and bright colors: Moonstone might even be reminiscent of a World of Warcraft Blood Elf here, in the red and orange palette. (Unintentionally fitting? Intentionally fitting? Who’s to say?) If you’re partial to a more cartoony look, or if you’re partial to her time as Meteorite, Moonstone’s General Pool variant might be for you.
01/16
Viktor Farro’s Scorn
Artist: Viktor Farro
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Farro’s next banger is here, this time tackling Scorn (the other more comics-recent and obscure Symbiote in the game), and it’s got to be some sort of boon for such a scarce back-catalog character to get such a great commission. Farro is clearly also using Scorn as an opportunity to flex some slightly more classic Venom features and apply to her feminine form and distinctively purple palette, which might be a drawback for folks who prefer a bigger focus on Scorn’s technological half. However, I think the motion and menace that’s oozing out from the painted work Farro lays down more than makes up for it— like always, I’m afraid it’s peak.
ADIA’s Nightforged Black Knight
Artist: ADIA
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Black Knight’s next commissioned variant is here, courtesy of ADIA, and it’s a straightforward, competently done portrait. Dane’s got a particularly Chad energy here, with his prominent lantern jaw and the Ebony Blade hefted over his shoulders. Like many other Nightforged variants, there’s a vague dark-fantasy theme going on, but Black Knight’s proximity to the supernatural anyways might make that a bit hard to discern— at least, until you see the gratuitous skulls and horns on his armor. It’s fitting, if not a bit redundant, but more than anything it's another stylized, well-rendered piece to add to the selection of such variants Dane’s already got. It might not be my favorite for him, but it’s solid, and I certainly wouldn’t mind stumbling on this in a cache at all!
01/19
WMM’s Sif Bundle
Artist: WMM
Source: Bundle
WMM’s back, and they’re back with what I consider their stronger variant of the two we’ve seen: this time, it’s Sif in a resting pose with her trusty blade beside her. Is my preference for this piece just my preference for enormous broadswords? Maybe. But I also really think this Sif steps up from the Hela piece in some really cool ways, with clear lighting on a more detailed, complex face and some really great color work on both the background and Sif’s classic red armor. I love the strong half-shadow on her face echoing the shadowed side of her blade— it’s simple, but it shows a great eye for composition. Bundle buyers out there, gird your wallets!
Dan Hipp’s… Early Bird Bullseye?
Artist: Dan Hipp
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Okay, to be clear, Bullseye is obviously not out yet, so this variant is not going to be out for anybody. Like everyone else on this wonderful website, I rely on snap.fan’s datamined work to inform what I write in these forecasts, and so if there is sometimes a hiccup in that data, it might reflect here too. Bullseye’s Spotlight Cache got swapped pretty late in the game as far as datamines go, meaning a shop variant like this might not have had its date changed to correspond. That might (and most likely will!) change with the patch coming tomorrow— and that goes for any release date you see on any of these variants! So keep an eye out for our patch coverage tomorrow. And in the meanwhile… I mean, c’mon. He doesn’t miss. And he’s drawing someone who doesn’t miss! And more than just his powers or weapons, Hipp manages to capture the absolute sadistic, psychopathic energy Lester carries and distill it down into a wonderfully cartoonish nefarious pose. Is he leaping into evil action? Or is he walking like he’s the deadliest Hanna-Barbera villain around? Either way, it’s so much personality, with all the Dan Hipp style and color-pop to support. Whenever this actually comes out, it’s going to be a snap pick-up from me.
01/20
Justin Currie’s Vector Style Nimrod
Artist: Justin Currie
Source: Bundle
We’ll round out our forecast this week with a debut artist in Justin Currie, who’s got a cool and very distinct vector based style befitting Nimrod— it evokes something futuristic, but moreover it evokes something coldly, robotically futuristic. There’s a Michael Bay Transformers, Gundam model-appeal to seeing so many plates and pieces come together to form one complex robot, and it’s a cool interpretation to put some texture on Nimrod’s oft-smoothed, rounded shell. That roundness is echoed by all the concentric hologram circles in the piece, and it’s all given Nimrod’s classic deadly pink in case you weren’t sure which Sentinel is getting paid the big bucks. So if you’re a Nimrod enjoyer, or maybe if you’re just a purveyor of big bucks yourself, maybe treat yourself with a cool bundle variant like this.
The End?
Not really. And not just because we do this every week, and I’ll see y’all every week— like I said before, the next patch is tomorrow (SNAP’s first of the year!) and it promises to have the usual big load of news, tidbits of the future, and, of course, datamined variants.
(I guess that’s today; I’m writing this late at night as we speak. Hope you’re enjoying the patch!)
But be aware— as datamined content, release dates, prices, and values on this website are all subject to change. And when you’re reading a forecast like this, that should be doubly apparent! (Thanks, Bullseye!) And so it’s a great teachable moment here to make sure and take datamines with a grain of salt— while they’re certainly signs of things behind the scenes and often of things yet-to-come, they’re also not officially announced, and can absolutely change, be scrapped, or moved about at Second Dinner’s leisure. But enough about that; I’m basically gonna say the same stuff tomorrow. Until then! What’d you think of this week? Are you as big a fan of this crop as me? Let me know in the comments below, and see you very (very) soon!