Posted By Dan Greenfield on Nov 6, 2025 | 7 comments

The fans would snap up Jorge Jimenez’s variant — and it would be great if DC made it happen…

There have been about 1,000,006 covers for Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez’s new Batman series so far, whether we’re talking regular fronts, foil versions, logo-onlies, direct-market variants, blind bags or retailer specials.

One of them is extremely difficult to come by and is so great, it deserves a fandom-wide release — Jimenez’s Robin design variant for Issue #2:

Nice, huh? Really, really nice.

Thing is, there’s only one on eBay at the moment — signed by Jimenez and colorist Tomeu Morey — on sale for an absurd $450 (“marked down” from $500). A few others have sold for around $75 to about $200, but I’ll be damned if I can find another available anywhere.

Why so rare? Because it’s a foil-only, New York Comic Con exclusive from ComicSketchArt.com. They had a brief, limited online pre-sale before NYCC, with issues available for $65 each and they quickly sold out. Their site says they don’t restock online. So that, it seems, would be that.

Except, DC could find a way to get it into wide release for the typical $6 or so. See, just this week, DC announced that Batman #1 was going to a third printing. It was already known that Batman #2 was headed for a second printing. If the sales patterns hold — and I imagine they will — it’s only a matter of time before we’ll see a third printing for that second issue.

And there’s the opening: Retailer-exclusive variants are exactly that — they can be sold only through that company, or the secondary market. But the same art can be used in a different format elsewhere.

For example, the Batman #1 third printing — due Dec. 3 — has a variant with Nick Dragotta art that was already used for a foil NYCC exclusive. It was sold at the con by DC but it was actually a Whatnot product. The third-printing version — going wide — is card stock, while, again, the con edition was foil.

Follow where I’m going here?

If Batman #2 goes to a third printing, there rests the opportunity to put the Robin cover out in a card-stock version. After all, it goes perfectly with Jimenez’s Batman #1 character design wraparound cover…

… as well as the groovy Bad-Gadget variants we’ve been getting, like this week’s for Batman #3:

Naturally, this may never happen. But it certainly could. And should.

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Inevitably, there are readers who will moan about the proliferation of variant covers and all the permutations they can take. I, for one, have no problem with it. Like, at all. The market will bear what the market will bear, and these would not exist if they didn’t have their fans, followers and collectors. Simple as that.

Believe me, if, say, Stan Lee had thought of it, and it were practical in the days before the direct market, it would have been done 60 years ago.

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MORE

— BATMAN #1: DC Rolls Out Big Wave of Fab Covers for Fall’s New Series. Click here.

— A GROOVY NEW VARIANT: 1940’s BATMAN #1 Meets 2025’s BATMAN #1. Click here.