Absolute Batman #20 has 103 known variant covers. Ninety-four are retailer exclusives. Eight are open-order editions. One is a 1:25 ratio incentive. Scott Snyder said DC planned to cap the variants for this issue. One hundred and three appears to be the cap. This number did not arrive from nowhere.
Fandom Pulse reported on the system underneath it in December 2024, when Absolute Batman #1 launched to numbers DC described as the bestselling comic of 2024. Our reporting, confirmed by a DC Comics insider and corroborated by Bleeding Cool and industry analyst Thinking Critical, showed how those numbers were constructed. DC dropped the retailer incentive variant threshold from 3,000 copies to 1,000 copies for the Absolute launch. A shop needed to purchase only 1,000 copies of Cover A before DC would allow them to commission their own exclusive variant print run. Some shops commissioned four or five covers each. A retailer source who spoke to Fandom Pulse on condition of anonymity said fewer than 30% of the people buying comics from his shop actually read them. The rest speculate.
