FYI - the new Walmart Marvel 3 packs are out. Sort of an interesting concept this month. Seems like they took all of the popular books from the past several batches and reprinted them with a color adjustment.
Thor 1, Spider-verse 1, Strange Academy 1, Venom 25, Venom Annual 1…
Made a late stop and found the whole lot in super minty condition. Bought a few to keep and a few to move.
So are they reprints?
Spiderverse #1 was selling for a fair amount,.this may hurt its value a bit.
They technically look like first prints. New variant covers.
Cracked two open. The venom 25 book is a little spiny, but the Strange Academy is a strong 9.8 contender.
Here’s what was inside:
Jane Foster Valkyrie 1 2nd print
Star Wars 62 B
Star Wars 62 C
Gwenpool 21 B lenticular
Do they ever sell these online? I’ve never been able to find them.
Is Spider-verse different? Maybe slightly less blue? The others are all pronounced logo color changes.
Even though these are a logo color change, the UPCs are exactly the same as the previous Walmart versions
Same UPC is odd.
But, on the inside, the book has a January 2021 date.
Checked my Walmart not there yet
That is so odd…so it’s a later printing, clearly. Not sure if there are “rules” for having a different UPC…Walmart doesn’t care…someone probably wanted not to change e cover design any more than they had to…
These are showing up on eBay with no differentiation between first and second prints…some calling them 2019 prints.
Beware.
I picked up 2 each of the Strange Academy, Venom 25 and Spider-Verse. Got a bunch of crap behind it except 1. I got a copy of Doctor Aphra 40- 1st Tython.- greatest hits variant. So not Cover A . But still better than most I’ve ever got in a Walmart pack.
I see some people calling these reprints. For example, some claim the UPC shows the newest Venom 25 walmart variant is a 7th print. But, Marvel is pretty clear about actually printing “2nd print” or “3rd print” or whatever on the UPC. Like this Venom 27 2nd print:
So, is this technically a first print? But, how on earth would that be possible? Did Marvel have this planned out 6 months ago, so it actually did run with 25 first print and just sat in the warehouse for half a year?
And, for what it’s worth, my purple logo venom 25 that I got at a Walmart last night has a UPC that ends in 6, so where 7th print is coming from is beyond me.
I also know the last two digits are often used for the variant number of the cover. So, in theory, the venom 27 above is issue 27 (per the 027) and variant #11 (as part of the 02711 number). I can buy that.
But, the purple logo walmart 25’s UPC ends with 02546. Is this the 46th variant of issue 25? And then if the UPC is the same as the ones from a few months ago (that clearly have a different color logo), how isn’t that considered a different variant?
It’s actually issue #27 Cover #1 1st Printing, not variant 11.
But, that’s clearly not cover #1 and 1st printing.
If you google it you’ll see that’s what the numbers mean or are supposed to mean.
I think that’s where people are misreading the UPC to say this Venom 25 is a 6th print. An article I read states that the last 2 mean variant number and printing UNLESS the variant number goes to double digits, then the printing number gets punted.
Does anyone KNOW for sure? Curious about how this stuff works, and there are all kinds of opinions flying around social media, as people can’t figure this one out.
I see why Marvel loves Cates so much, he sells books. I just went through the variant covers for venom 25 and there’s 45 covers not including the new Walmart one. There’s almost 500 variant covers for that volume of the series so far and it’s only in the 30’s.
I hope someone has a definitive answer on the barcodes because it obviously doesn’t match up to that book. Maybe Walmart doesn’t follow that rule or the the printing number got “punted”.
