Magic is in the air… and also in the season’s new cards and variants, week by week! It’s another forecast, with your standard slate of cool variants and cooler variants dropping into our laps. With confirmation that we’ll be seeing Spotlights in the general shop for that 2400 price point, expect to see coverage of those variants as they come each release.
Note that with so many changes and patches coming in and out, there are also some backend changes that seem to be happening, with release dates and rarities sometimes shuffling about. Datamines aren’t confirmed, yadda yadda, subject to change, yadda yadda. It’s important! But let’s dive into what we know so far.
06/10
Winking Studio’s Spotlight Ancient One
Artist: Winking Studio
Source: General Pool (Spotlight)
With confirmation now that Spotlight variants planned for each weekly new card will release under the previously established 2400 Gold priceline for Spotlights, folks can expect the Winking Studio take on The Ancient One to hit the game in the shop! Like many of these commissioned variants, this is almost a direct adaptation of the base art by Mello/Kinnaird, which is in turn modeled closely on the MCU’s take on the Ancient One.
I actually really enjoy the blend of liberties that the design takes from the films—although it’s amusing that there is a clear trend Mello has taken giving characters hoods as a shorthand for ‘modernization’ (see: Diamondback, Batroc, and The Ancient One herself). But it’s a fine design, especially adapting those characters, and Winking Studios follows suit, essentially giving a ‘high definition’ version of the same design with a more painted rendering style. Be aware that Second Dinner has mentioned that these variants will likely re-enter the Offers tab at some point for a Token price: if the Gold price seems steep, or if you have an excess of tokens you’d rather spend, consider hold off. For any Ancient One diehards, though, she’ll be landing with at least two variants this week!
Nikola Čižmešija’s Victoria Hand!
Artist: Nikola Čižmešija
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Čižmešija’s lending another banger to a character who’s still filling out a proper variant catalogue; I feel like there’s an especially successful style match here watching him double down on the formal attire/colored hair combo that sells so well in his anime-inspired style— the result is slick and rife with his stylization in both linework and subtler angle for the composition framing. I love Čižmešija’s linework and colors, as is custom, and seeing all of it land for another 700 Gold makes a severely compelling case for making this my personal go-to for Hand.
Tae Kwon Kim’s Wiccan Bundle
Artist: Tae Kwon Kim
Source: Bundle
Tae Kwon Kim’s next character tackled is going to be Wiccan for this bundle, and it’s a great match for our boy Billy to get the Korean-style pretty-boy glow-up as supervised by Kim’s eye for detailed rendering. Kim’s handled primarily young female characters in previous variants, and while they’ve done so quite competently before, it’s an awesome way to flex some diversity by breaking away from that convention and being able to capture so much of the character regardless. I like the colors and lighting a lot, and that powerful up-looking angle does the work of making Wiccan feel powerful. Great piece, for bundle buyers out there!
06/11
Cover Alert: What If? (1989) #19!
Artist: Ron Wilson/Sam De La Rosa
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
The latest in classic covers we’re getting will be a What If? Cover for Vision, from that one hypothetical storyline where Vision takes over the world! It’s always welcome to see the older depictions of the characters we know and love, and it’s interesting that we’ll be getting some What If? covers specifically down the line. Vision leading Doom and a Hydra dude is an ominous image in any case, and folks that have wanted a classic take on a classic character will hopefully be able to finally get one step closer to a full classic cover deck.
Creative House Pocket’s Ancient One
Artist: Creative House Pocket
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Creative House Pocket covers the backup shop variant for Ancient One, giving her the anime style treatment with a side of the paint splash thematic that Creative House Pocket’s latest fixation seems to be. It’s a solid alternative take (though still with that hood!) and the paint matches well enough with these magical characters as a general effect, though it’s overall a common theme that’s a bit out of left field. Super Rare pricing is going to be more affordable by half than the Spotlight pricing, so folks looking for a different look that’s more affordable ought to look here!
06/12
Cover Alert: Rescue (2010) #1!
Artist: Travel Foreman/June Chung
Source: General Pool (Rare)
We’ve got a bit of a deep cut cover from the 2010 Rescue series, with line work by Travel Foreman and colors by June Chung, and it’s a cool reminder that this character was more than an 11th-hour cavalry member in Endgame; I enjoy such reminders, because these characters often come from a much lesser-known history that variants like this can uncover! To say nothing about the piece itself, which has all the pieces flying out to zap onto Pepper like a proper Iron Man suit.
I like the lightning effects and the way the pieces frame the close-up portrait of Pepper, before even the piecemeal suit in Iron Man 3 popularized an Iron Man armor as a collectible set of modular parts. (Something that I believe was actually an initial reference to Rescue, before the more overt one). It’s a great cover, and like many great covers, it somehow sits at a 700 gold price point; something I’m shocked at, but certainly not complaining about.
ADIA’s Hydra Bob Bundle
Artist: ADIA
Source: Bundle
Hydra Bob’s turn in the ADIA Fantasy transmogrifier is here, and he’s amusingly emerged with a fantastical, spiky, darksteel-metallic rocket-propelled grenade launcher. It’s maybe the positive side of ADIA’s policy to ‘kinda-transform’ its Fantasy recipients, where the absurd side becomes a genuinely fun, interesting take on what a Fantasy style can accomplish. (I love the little targeting scope.) Otherwise, it’s the customary collection of nondescript evil skull-looking icons and dragon-esque spikes covering Bobert head to toe, achieving the more typical effect on top of that critical mass of ridiculousness that becomes one of the best things about this piece. With zero cynicism, sarcasm, or irony, cheers to medieval rocket launchers!
06/13
Grafit Studio’s Quicksilver
Artist: Grafit Studio
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Grafit Studio’s bringing one of those rare one-off studio pieces that I really do dig quite a lot; Grafit’s already proven a baseline competent source of art, but this one feels like it captures a kinetic energy you don’t always see in many studio variants swinging for dynamism. Moreover, the painted quality of this particular variant—and the colors and highlights that are painted in—feels more individual and authentic than many other glossier variants rendered in slicker detail. (I love the way the texture plays with that lighting to bring the piece into sharp relief). I like it a lot, and while I don’t expect to suddenly be a diehard for Grafit, it’s a great reminder that there are actual artists under the studio umbrella whose work can shine through!
06/14
Lemon Art’s Ultron
Artist: Lemon Art
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Continuing to break away from their initial run on fashion magazine variants, Lemon Art is bringing us a more evergreen design for Ultron, adopting multiple evil-slit eyes and a red cape flourish as the design innovations to set it apart. It’s a solid one, using some subtle red lighting to warm those cold greys and match with that trademark orange glow coming from everyone’s favorite killer robot. I appreciate the design changes as much as I do any sort of creative decision adapting a design, and while I don’t think this one reinvents the wheel, somebody looking for a fine, slightly modified take on Ultron may find this one hits all the murderbot checkboxes just right.
06/15
Brett Bean’s Yondu Bundle!
Artist: Brett Bean
Source: Bundle
Brett Bean’s back in bundles, baby—and it’s hard to be mad at it when it’s such a fun one, focusing compositionally on Film Yondu’s penchant for weaponized whistling. The cartoonized style exaggerates that whistling perfectly, focusing hard on his expression while also capturing the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it motion of that deadly dart in the trademark laser trail it leaves behind. These are all on top of Bean’s talent for capturing a stylized visage in an interesting and exciting way—Yondu’s weathered space pirate visage is ripe for this sort of style, and seeing it rendered in profile is fun and interesting! Bundle buyers would be quite justified giving this one a shot: for the rest of us Vault-waitin’ shmucks, it’s a huge possible hit to see in a year.
06/16
Justin Fields’ Iron Lad
Artist: Justin Fields
Source: Unknown
We’ve got a pair of variants from an unknown release source on this last day, though if every other Justin Fields variant is anything to go off of, this Iron Lad will likely launch in some kind of high-spender bundle. It’s hard to be too mad at that, too, with lots of dramatic light effects combining with Fields’ trademark lavish rendering in a techy, space environs to create a piece with lots of visual stimulation in the composition. It’s the sort of variety that helps make a piece feel interesting, and those bright reds work really well with the duller red and grey of the suit. I also like how Iron Lad here feels more apart from Iron Man, with a more space suit texture to complement that iconic, almost unsettling face from an unseen future. It’ll almost certainly be expensive, but looking at the variant, it’ll almost certainly be worth it to anyone interested.
Cover Alert: Storm (2024) #1!
Artist: Jee Hyung Lee
Source: Unknown
The last variant for the week will be a cover! And, clearly, someone at Second Dinner is a fan of not only X-Men but of current X-Men, with this Storm by Jee Hyung Lee being the latest series #1 to be transferred into SNAP. As an avid reader of current comics, it’s always cool to see that there are folks just as involved at that level, and as an avid comic cover enjoyer, it’s awesome to see current talent getting the recognition it deserves. Jee Hyung Lee hit’s all the notes that some Storm variants miss—if the last Storm variant I covered had a skin lightening problem, this one feels like it captures a proper dark-skinned tone that’s then also complemented by the rest of the composition, against the lighter greys and greens of the wind behind her and the blue-white lighting lighting the whole piece. It’s a great one, and while Storm is literally swimming in amazing variants, another one potentially joining the club is more than welcome.
Wrapping Up
Some great variants are hitting the shop, and just now I’ve begun to finally recoup the gold losses from the last wave of great work. So I’ll be making some judicious decisions, and I want to hear about yours, too! What are you saving for? What are you on the fence about? What would you be happy to receive, free of charge, from one of those nifty Mystery Variants flying about? Let me know, and until then I’ll see you next week.
Check out the new patch information here!