Marvel Surprises Retailers With Free Greg Capullo Wolverine Variant

The superstar whose career first exploded on 'X-Force' is returning to the House of Ideas.

By Russ Burlingame

Greg Capullo is working for Marvel -- and the publisher is celebrating in a special way: retailers opened their deliveries this week to see a special one-per-store variant of Wolverine #37, featuring virgin artwork by Capullo, included in their order. The unannounced variant will likely be a nice boost for retailers who decide to sell it for a premium, but will inevitably raise questions about whether there will be a similar treat for the upcoming Deadpool: Seven Slaughters, for which Capullo will also be providing a variant.

Capullo, most famous for his work on Spawn and Batman, has been one of the most in-demand artists in comics for years. Bringing him to Marvel is a great way to reignite the kind of freelancer bidding wars that got fans excited ten or so years ago.

You can see the cover below.

wolverine-37-virgin.png
(Photo: Third Eye Comics)

That photo came to us from Third Eye Comics -- handy, since that particular shop will be doing a special giveaway on their Instagram account later this week, and one fan will walk away with that exact copy!

The cover was one that Capullo teased quite a bit on social media, although without ever revealing that it was for an actual Marvel book rather than a commission or for himself. He shared an early version, followed by a later photo of him scrapping that previous design to start again.

"This is a complete restart of a piece that was on the board today," he wrote on social media. "An outside stressor entered my life today and wreaked havoc on my mind and therefore my art. TAKE TWO, you SOB."

Related:

The artist previously shared that while he's happy to be working with Marvel again he has no interest in working on a monthly title, so expect more of these variants to come soon (and maybe an OGN or miniseries if fans get really lucky).

"Marvel's been approaching me forever, I run into CB (Cebulski, Marvel's Editor-in-chief) a lot. I said just to get started you know, we'll do a project but I'll do some covers," Capullo said on Mark Millar's Millar Time podcast. "I have discussed a particular project because I'm 60 now, I don't want to do runs anymore. I told everybody. DC, Marvel, whoever, three to six issue run and that's it. I can't keep getting locked in because I want to do a few things before I hang up my pencil. My intention is to do some covers while I'm working on  Creech, do a project with Marvel and then what happens after that, I'm not sure. I talked with Scott about an original idea I have, we'll probably do something like that at some point."

Trending Now: