I'll give you incentive.

If you know me, you know I love me some comic books. I started reading them when I was 6, continued with them until I was 13. I read them because I liked the stories, the heroes with their extraordinary abilities, and the constant struggle between good and evil. Also, Todd McFarlane's rendition of Spider-Man. However, I stopped reading comics after the art started to get really good and the stories became generic, unimaginative, and uninspired. You can stare at scandalously dressed women with huge tits for only so long before your interest is lost.
.....Now I'm back at my old haunts, Ron's Comic Room in Scarborough, Planet X in Richmond Hill, 4th Dimension in Newmarket, and just recently Sci-fi World near York U collecting various titles and spending at least 50 dollars a month. While the storytelling is catching up to the quality of the art work, there are still some bullshit practices going on.
.....The cock-suckers at Marvel have resurrected a way to suck money out of comic book vendors, which actually caused the plummet in readership during the late 90's. This gouge at the capital of comic book store owners forces propriators to reciprocate by sticking their metaphoric cocks in the collective asses of the consumers. How may you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Variant Covers.
.....What's a variant cover, you ask? Well, a variant cover is actually quite simple. See, just as any other comic book has a cover, so does a variant. But, a comic book that has variant covers means that there are comics of the same issue published that differ from each other only in the art on the, yup you guessed it, front cover. Nothing inside is different, in fact, their content is identical.
.....Back in my days of comic book collecting variants were no more rare than the regular covers, in fact, they were sold along side the regular covers and it was a choice of personal preference which you'd buy. Although, it's true that one might be worth more than another, the comics were usually published in equal amounts. Here's an example of a variant cover.

.....That's all well and good, two different covers, two choices. At 3.25 + taxes a pop, you aren't breaking the bank if simply gotta have em' both. Two issues with different covers is not the problem, this is:

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Count em'. 5 different covers for the same issue. Well, at least they all come together to make one big picture. Look what those cacks at Marvel did with Spider-man #1 in the 90's:

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(From left to right: Green var., Black var., Green var. bagged, Black var. bagged, Gold var., Platinum var.)

.....If you look at the first four you might say they're identical. Actually, if you look at all of them you'd be right in saying they're all pretty much the same shit. The first two, however, were BAGGED. Pretty greedy, huh? Six issues, same cover, different colours. If memory serves me correctly, the "platinum variant" went for about 100 bux.
.....What really pisses in my cornflakes is that instead of using what used to sell comic books, namely good stories that held the readers in suspense and awe, Marvel, D.C. and the other comic book monkeys are opting to produce multiple covers to sell their stories. Dicks.
.....Back to good ol' 2004. Has much changed since the 90's? Yes and No. Variants are still around, but there's something called an Ultra Variant. These ultra variants are so fucking rare that you pretty much have to be the comic shop guys' personal cock-jockey to get them at all, let alone at cover price. That isn't the fault of the comic shop people, it's Marvel. Getting these variants doesn't depend on luck, it depends on how many copies the comic book store orders. The ratio is something like order 500 regular covers and you'll get 1 variant. Marvel calls them "Incentive Issues", I call them bullshit.
.....In an interview with Marvel's Gui Karyo, President of Publishing, the interviewer asked him,

"As I understand it, you're using two variant covers on the first printings of Astonishing X-Men #1 as incentives for orders on other books. Is this a one-time thing, or a technique that Marvel is going to incorporate into its marketing mix?"

to which Gui replied,

"We're honestly not sure at this point. We believe strongly in experimentation. We are still evaluating both of the variant cover strategies we are employing with Astonishing X-Men #1. Check in again in a few months."
.....The way Marvel wants to experiment with its fan base reminds me of a girl I dated in high school, she wanted to experiment by way of putting her fingers up my ass.
.....Most recently in the adventure of variant covers, though, is the new title "The New Avengers" brought about by the Avengers Disassembled story arc. As I was looking through a stack of "The New Avengers" in the Wizard of Centerpoint to see if I could catch a glimpse of the variant cover, the load of a human being at the counter took a break from his hard job sitting on his ass talking on the phone. Before he noticed me he was yammering on about how he was amazed that all the variants had almost sold out already. I guess fucko smelled a sale when saw me flipping through the New Avengers, he called over to me, resting the receiver on his shoulder.
....."Can I help you?"
....."I'm just looking, thanks."
....."If you're looking for the variants, they're up here."
.....So I walked over and looked in the glass case. 40.99. I looked at him, he smiled. I wanted to slap him.
....."Thanks." I said, and left.

.....50 dollars for THIS:

But, that's how it is, I guess. No matter what you love you have to take the good with the bad, like a battered wife I'll always come back to comic books.