History Main / VariantCover

[[folder:Video games]]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/variants_2.jpg]]]]

** Two of the company's ''Serenity'' miniseries present an interesting case: the first one, 2005's ''SerenityThoseLeftBehind'', which is supposed to bridge the gap between ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' and TheMovie, capitalized on the fact that the series had exactly nine protagonists while the comic had exactly [[ThreeActStructure three issues]] - the former of which you might notice is evenly divisible by the latter. It did this by having [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity:_Those_Left_Behind#Cover_illustrations various artists]] contribute to a series of individual character portraits, with each issue having exactly three Variant Covers, each featuring a different character. The second miniseries, ''ComicBook/SerenityBetterDays'', however, was explicitly noted by its creators as "[[InvertedTrope reversing the gag]]" from that first series, by making the three issues have only ''[[AvertedTrope one]]'' cover apiece, each featuring ''three'' characters...but to top it off, the three covers ''themselves'' formed a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych triptych.]] Meaning the first miniseries played the trope [[PlayedStraight utterly straight]] to the extent of [[CrackIsCheaper featuring nine cover images for a 3-issue series]], while the second [[InvertedTrope utterly inverted it]] to the extent that an entire 3-issue series ''[[ExactWords technically]]'' [[ExactWords only had "one" cover image]]. The art used for the latter, coincidentally, was done by Adam Hughes, one of the artists who contributed to the Variant Covers for ''Those Left Behind''.

** Two of the company's ''ComicBook/{{Serenity}}'' miniseries present an interesting case: the first one, 2005's ''SerenityThoseLeftBehind'', which is supposed to bridge the gap between ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' and TheMovie, capitalized on the fact that the series had exactly nine protagonists while the comic had exactly [[ThreeActStructure three issues]] - the former of which you might notice is evenly divisible by the latter. It did this by having [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity:_Those_Left_Behind#Cover_illustrations various artists]] contribute to a series of individual character portraits, with each issue having exactly three Variant Covers, each featuring a different character. The second miniseries, ''ComicBook/SerenityBetterDays'', however, was explicitly noted by its creators as "[[InvertedTrope reversing the gag]]" from that first series, by making the three issues have only ''[[AvertedTrope one]]'' cover apiece, each featuring ''three'' characters...but to top it off, the three covers ''themselves'' formed a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych triptych.]] Meaning the first miniseries played the trope [[PlayedStraight utterly straight]] to the extent of [[CrackIsCheaper featuring nine cover images for a 3-issue series]], while the second [[InvertedTrope utterly inverted it]] to the extent that an entire 3-issue series ''[[ExactWords technically]]'' [[ExactWords only had "one" cover image]]. The art used for the latter, coincidentally, was done by Adam Hughes, one of the artists who contributed to the Variant Covers for ''Those Left Behind''.

** Two of the company's ''ComicBook/{{Serenity}}'' miniseries present an interesting case: the first one, 2005's ''Those Left Behind'', which is supposed to bridge the gap between ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' and TheMovie, capitalized on the fact that the series had exactly nine protagonists while the comic had exactly [[ThreeActStructure three issues]] - the former of which you might notice is evenly divisible by the latter. It did this by having [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity:_Those_Left_Behind#Cover_illustrations various artists]] contribute to a series of individual character portraits, with each issue having exactly three Variant Covers, each featuring a different character. The second miniseries, ''Better Days'', however, was explicitly noted by its creators as "[[InvertedTrope reversing the gag]]" from that first series, by making the three issues have only ''[[AvertedTrope one]]'' cover apiece, each featuring ''three'' characters...but to top it off, the three covers ''themselves'' formed a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych triptych.]] Meaning the first miniseries played the trope [[PlayedStraight utterly straight]] to the extent of [[CrackIsCheaper featuring nine cover images for a 3-issue series]], while the second [[InvertedTrope utterly inverted it]] to the extent that an entire 3-issue series ''[[ExactWords technically]]'' [[ExactWords only had "one" cover image]]. The art used for the latter, coincidentally, was done by Adam Hughes, one of the artists who contributed to the Variant Covers for ''Those Left Behind''.

** In another example of a Variant Cover attracting unanticipated controversy, the first issue of ''[[ComicBook/SpiderWoman2014 Spider-Woman]]'' had a now-infamous one by Milo Manara, which featured the title character in such an awkward and [[FanServiceCover shamelessly sexual]] pose (seriously, it's been compared to "a cat in heat", and not unreasonably), that it immediately attracted scorn, as well as [[MemeticMutation loads of parodies and deconstructions]] digging into it for everything from the shameless [[FanService fan service]] of the image to the [[ArtisticLicenseBiology improbable anatomy]] and the [[FridgeLogic sheer silliness]] of the pose. Some of these were actually done by Manara's own peers in the industry. The thing became such an infamous meme that Frank Cho was still doing pastiches of the cover with different female characters years later, mostly satirizing the public reaction itself (e.g. having the character in question mutter that she was hoping to "boost sales to her book"). Such are the rules of MemeticMutation that this controversy translated into permanent in-universe notoriety. In 2016 Spider-Woman met a Skrull teenager (i.e. someone from a different species and ''galaxy'') who immediately identified her as "That Avenger ... the one with the butt."

* '''VideoGame/WarcraftIII''' has four different box arts, one for each of the playable races.