In the end, Marvel, DC and the rest ultimately lost customers because the quality inside the books didn't match the flashiness of the covers.

Fast forward to today, where Marvel announces it's re-introducing the foil cover to relaunch a line of comics that was just retired with a series that is universally loathed.

If these variants sell, it could spell the return of a mindset where publishers don't feel they need to put out a quality product if it has a shiny cover.

Add this to the fact that they're doing it to a line that was originally designed to introduce their characters to a wider audience and the casual fan. But the casual fan doesn't care about shiny covers. Speculators and collectors do. So a line that was intended for new audiences is now being re-introduced in a way that only appeals to fanboys.

Add to this that this exactly the kind of thing that Joe Quesada said time and again at the beginning of his tenure as EIC that we would never return to.

And add to this the revelation that someone (was it Brevoort?) let it slip that the recent increase in price wasn't to offset rising costs, but a way to make a larger profit from their existing customers, instead of trying to grow their audience.

So, yeah, we don't need to buy these variants, but this is just another in an increasing line of things that are getting people fed up with Marvel's business practices. But Marvel is the leader in the industry, and when it offends its fans, most of them don't just leave Marvel. They leave comics.

Go through WHAT exactly?

No one is forcing anything on you or anyone else. Either buy it or don't. If enough people don't buy 'em, then Marvel won't print 'em.

People need to stop being so overly dramatic.

I do hope that this is a one-time thing and not a trend. I don't want to go through that again.

On another note, I kinda like the trade dress.

I can believe "foilogram" covers. I can't believe anyone would seriously say things like “This is Marvel doing the nineties right,” or "fans [have] been demanding this kind of variant!”

Ha ha, pretty funny.

To validate the price increases, DC has given us backups second features and Marvel has given us shiny covers!

I await the return of polybagged issues of Moon Knight with 1 in 5 collectors cards for each of Marc Spector's personalities.

Seriously?

I mean... SERIOUSLY?

Sketch covers I understand. Variant covers by different artists I understand. Foil stamped and holographic covers I do not understand.

It's not that foil and/or holographic covers are by their nature evil. But they bring no added value to the comic book underneath, unlike the other kinds of variant covers. They exist solely to entice speculators to invest in them in the hopes they will increase in value. Which, of course, is how the industry got into the mess it did in the 90s.

So, fans demanded it, huh? Name three. I want the names (or usernames) of three individual people who contacted Marvel and said it would be a good idea to bring back foil covers.

It's obvious that someone in Marvel PR has clearly gone off the rails.