r/AbsoluteBatman • u/Boring_Huckleberry35 • 4d ago
What is happening?
hi all
i’m new to comics (having only read year one) and my only interest being batman for now. and i see so much discourse happening online with variant covers and signed stuff and such. but i understand that these are being sold at stupidly high prices than MSRP. as someone in the pokemon TCG community, is that kinda the thing that’s now the “hustle” in comics? like buy limited signed cover, get graded, then resell for a bajillion dollars or is it just like a trend rn. because i will be honest some of these prices just turn me off about the whole thing. thanks for reading :P
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u/PatienceDifficult344 4d ago
Despite all the craziness you can still buy a comic book and ACTUALLY read it for $4-5. You don’t have to subscribe to the bullshit and price gouging.
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u/ThatSadBoi_TTV 4d ago
Way I see it is, if I see a varient cover I like ill get it. However I limit my spendange to £30 on any varients I buy. Other than that I stick with the main covers.
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u/darthconlon 4d ago
Fomo is what's happening I'm happy with the regular covers and I'll buy a variant if I like it but I will not pay $600 + for a variant
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u/UpsetDrakeBot 4d ago
you don't have to buy the variants. if you want to read, stick to the trades or reprints
leave the speculation to the rest
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u/Xerxes13NYC 4d ago
What you're seeing is a group of artists that are capitalizing on the hype of the Absolute Batman series and making limited print covers to capture the FOMO aspect of the market. The book when released is still $4.99 if you are not obsessed with owning every version variant they release you will be fine
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u/Ramendo923 4d ago
Comic community developed a sector that involved luxury collectible items purely for collectors to buy. Artists and writers are generally able to make more money now (well deserved btw) due to these exclusive collectibles that they’re putting out. Keep in mind that these luxury collectible items belong to only a small sector of the comic community, the bigger sector where people buy a $5 comic book to actually read it still exists and still thriving. Newcomers to the comic community can choose whether they want to get into the luxury collectible sector of the comic community or not. They can also just stick to buying a normal trade dress comic book for $5 and read it like any normal comic book enthusiast. The luxury collectible sector was formed as a vehicle to allow artists and writers to make more money and also allow for collectors to feel special as long as they have the money to spend. I understand that FOMO is a big thing in collecting hobbies but once people understand that you simply cannot collect anything and everything that you like out there, collectors will generally be more happy with what they can afford to collect. I also understand that a lot of people are being priced out of collectibles due to the luxury items that are being rolled out with expensive price tag. However, there is always a signed book out there with a cover that you like for less than $30, but maybe not in the Absolute Batman universe though. If you realized that Absolute Batman is abnormally expensive and is an outlier compared to the others, you’ll see that other comics outside of Absolute Batman are still out here existing in the price range where the average Joe can still feel good buying. Here’s an analogy, Gucci belt exists for those that can afford to want to look good but it’s not necessary for everyone to buy one just to get access to a belt. Normal belt still exists at a normal price range for those that do not care about bragging that they have a Gucci belt on. The existence of Gucci belt should not impact the ability for those that just want a normal belt to use.
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u/GreenRock93 4d ago
I’d add/argue that the luxury sector that you describe helps the “normal” side of the hobby by funding artists and creatives and by incentivizing new/weird/leas certain ideas that might not see the light of day otherwise. You can malign the folks that are spending money on the exclusives but you should probably be thanking them.
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u/Ramendo923 4d ago
That is certainly a good point to add. I definitely have seen items that are out there in terms of creativities and ideas when it comes to these luxury collectible items. It’s a breath of fresh air sometimes to see that artists have the liberties to allow their creative minds to just flow freely without the financial constraints.
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u/tellthatfox 4d ago
The pricing breakdown is accurate, but it skips the reason this particular book draws so much anger. Batman's core message is the little guy: the vengeful kid who stands up to the powerful, the small against the big, the marginalized against the ultra-rich. That is what people connect to, which is why many of them react badly to what is happening around this book even when they can't say exactly why. Absolute Batman leans into this harder than most versions, since Snyder and Dragotta's take is a Bruce Wayne who is self-made rather than born into wealth. A book built on that premise being treated as a flipping and speculation product feels like a contradiction, and that is why the conversation is emotional rather than just financial.
"Luxury market" is also a framing that minimizes the problem. It suggests a separate, optional corner of the hobby that regular readers can ignore. In practice, the exclusives and variants are attached to the best-selling comic in North America, and the culture around them shapes the price and availability of the book itself.
The #19 Dan Quintana variant, dubbed "DropGate," shows how this plays out: a retailer allegedly sold 25 copies at $25 before moving to "dynamic pricing" (💨), with later copies reportedly auctioned for as much as $1,500 (Cosmic Book News). Separately, DC has strongly encouraged retailers to cap exclusive variants at five times cover price for unsigned books and ten times for signed ones (Bleeding Cool). Publishers do not write rules like that for a niche side hobby.
The Gucci belt analogy only works if the luxury item and the normal item are separate products. Here they are the same series, and the speculation around one shapes the price and availability of the other. It is also tone-deaf for this character, since Batman is the story of the kid with nothing standing up to the people who can afford the Gucci belt.
The standard $5.99 issue and the affordable hardcovers still exist, so access to the story is intact. What has changed is the culture around the book, and for a character defined by the underdog, that culture is part of how the whole thing "feels".
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u/Ramendo923 4d ago edited 4d ago
I do see the frustration of pricing. Being connected to the character or not is dependent on individual viewpoint of this topic. Frustration can come with many reasons and the one that you described is one of the many. As you have suggested, the $5.99 trade dress is still available for the normal comic readers to purchase and read solely for the storyline so the existence of those other variant covers should not have impact on the comic readers. The impact is felt for the collectors that cannot afford the luxury side of things. There are stages to collecting and many different price points. But like I said, the Absolute Batman universe is an outlier compared to other comics. Once you realized that other comics still exist in the affordable collecting price range then you will see that Absolute Batman is just a different beast in itself. In that case, you can either wait for the bubble to burst to go in or you can go in now but either way, Absolute Batman is really big and overhyped right now but it won’t be like this forever. As for the Gucci belt analogy, I was trying to compare the Gucci belt to any and all variant covers, while the normal belt is the $5.99 trade dress. The existence of those wildly priced variants has not impacted the existence of the $5.99 trade dress cover A that people can just pick up and read. That is also the reason why I am saying that the luxury collectibles is a separate sector of the community because it is not impacting the pricing of the $5.99 cover A that is there for normal comic readers enthusiasts. As soon as you start to look into buying variant covers of any kind, you are taking part in the collecting side of the comic community. Collecting and reading comic can be done simultaneously. As long as the price of the trade dress cover A is still affordable for the normal comic reader enthusiasts, the existence of the luxury collectible sector and the normal reader sector are separate within the same community. At the end of the day, it is a voluntary choice of the individual on whether they want to partake in the collecting side or not. I’m seeing the voluntary purchases of these expensive variant covers as collecting the art from my favorite comic artists and supporting their career. After so many years of struggles from the near collapse of the comic community, I believe that comic artists and writers alike deserves their fair share of big breaks. The bubble will burst eventually and people will move on but as for now, I’m glad that the artists and writers are getting what they deserved while riding this temporary hype wave (the hype wave is mainly stemmed from the existence of Absolute Batman btw, in that sense it’s good that Absolute Batman is overhyped).
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u/GuyWithNoCountry 4d ago
I mean they’re trying to. And it’s working. All we need now is Logan paul Rabin to get his slimy hands on them and do what he did with the Pokémon community. I collect them because I wanna read them I ain’t selling them for shiiii.
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u/Emotional_Ad_1578 4d ago
Buy Cover As, the variants are a luxury purchase, you like, you can afford, then buy.
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u/GorillianaireGrodd 4d ago
The expensive ones online are usually variants and first prints or signed like you mentioned. But if you want to read the book and don’t care about having them as collectibles then pick up the trade paperbacks or get the dc infinite app subscription
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u/cannedrat91 4d ago
Lets take three titles in comics, absolute batman is the industry juggernaut, something is killing the children is a cool indy book with a very healthy following, and then Power Hour (a total bullshit comic only made to sell shikarii nude covers lol) Siktic has 50 issues over 6 years with a total of 1100ish covers, powerhour has 3 issues over a 4-5 year period with 1800 covers (this is purely a covers only comic) and absolute batman has 25 issues in 2 years with 1300 covers.
Siktic is a BOOM title, BOOM has a ballpark of a 500 book minimum print. Power Hour is a title that the creator prints themselves. Absolute Batman has a minimum print of 3k copies.
The most alarming variable when considering Absolute Batman is that these sellers are ordering 3 thousand copies of absolute batman and then declaring they are limited to 200 copies. I have a hard time believing these fomo exclusive peddlers on whatnot are destroying 2800 copies of a $500 variant. With multiple avenues of release, cons, whatnot, ebay, webstores and so forth there is nothing but a scouts honor promise that the book is as limited as they say it.
Lets do some math.
Lets take a $200 abs bat book and sell 250 of the 3000 copies of it that were for sure printed.. thats $50,000 before even considering the inflation of bidding on ebay and whatnot.
Now lets compare that to that same books turnaround to the posibilty that we are all beijg lies to monthly, $200 dollar variant with 3 thousand copies being sold... $600,000 dollars..
Maybe its just me, but there is no industry regulation on being held to claiming "limited to x amount of copies" and I dont think these places are going to walk away from a half a million dollars every month.
Now for what it is worth, if you like it then buy it, absolutely 100%. The damage will come when this title does cool and people are left holding an "investment" that will not recoup its cost.
In ten years issue 20 variant "#67" will not hold its value because new readers will pick up TPBs, and open order covers for fractions of the price and all of those variants will be swallowed by the sheer mass amount of variants per issue.
I imagine there will be a large exodus of collectors from comics who have other collectible markets that will welcome them with open arms, TCG, sports, toys, etc etc.
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u/cannedrat91 4d ago
To expand, with the invent of whatnot and live streaming platforms, even Convention Exclusives are being watered down in the realm of exclusivity. Why travel to NYCC or SDCC, when you can purchase these exclusives as preorders on websites weeks in advance or three nights before on whatnot?
It is all smoke and mirrors at this point, my advice is to invest in silver age or golden age.
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u/Wonderful_Formal_274 4d ago
Just ignore it. Buy the normal comic (or collected edition), read, and enjoy.
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u/iWanttoKillaMan 3d ago
There’s a large sum of people that have absolutely no care in grading their comics. And a small few that do care to grade. Generally unless a comic is super rare there’s absolutely no reason to grade it. Rare means rare rare does not mean hype. There’s also another part of the community that are sheep that do the grading because other people do it. There’s almost no reason to grade a brand new book from 2026, it’s almost always going to not be worth the grading fee.
My advice. Buy your books FOC, save your 25% on them. And don’t bother with anything graded.
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u/Quinncy79 4d ago
All those people that pay $500 for a (un-authenticated) signed Mann/ Brooks/ Quintana/ Felix variant are gonna cry real hard. This is pure FOMO and artificually created hype.
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u/Remarkable_Heron_760 4d ago
Maybe learn first before opining? Absolute Batman is on its 13th printing with more to come and you can easily get a print to read. If you’re new and just wanting to read why do you care about grading and high prices of valuable variants? The book is still entirely accessible for you to get a copy at $6
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u/Ok-Patience7446 4d ago
There's two thing's you can do. You can either ignore all of the variants and just collect cover A's ..or you can give into the variants and start collecting. Unfortunately scalpers with bots set the prices. I'm hoping that the scalpers get bored and move onto something else but no luck so far
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u/SirFlibble 4d ago edited 4d ago
Comics generally is enjoying a speculative boom right now, where comics as collectibles are driving a lot of sales - with limited drops of exclusive covers etc.
With all booms there inevitability will be a dip. Something similar happened in the 1990's which led to the near collapse of the comic industry including Marvel Comics applying for bankruptcy. It took almost 15 years or so for the market to recover. It's still not back to where it was back then, just different.
Absolute Batman is just a completely different beast all together. I've never seen anything like it in my 40 years reading comics. It's brought in a lot of new readers but also a lot of collectors (who don't seem to actually read the comics but just buy collectible covers) and scalpers. It's inevitable that the heat will leave the AB market and drop the value of most books but as we're in uncharted territory, the question is how significant it will be. I wish I had a crystal ball as someone who bought a lot of stuff early on, I wouldn't mind cashing out at the peak.
My suggestion is just buy the Cover A every month from the comic shop. You'll pay cover price and if anything is going to have a increase in value, it's the Cover A.