With its Blood Hunt crossover, Marvel Comics introduced a new concept in the world of comic book publishing; alternate versions of the “regular” edition of the comic book, but with more violence in them, making them effectively “R-Rated” variations of a regular comic book story. Dubbed “Red Band” variants, these copies were exclusive to the print edition of Blood Hunt, and as it turned out, Marvel’s bet on these new types of comic books paid off, as all five issues of Blood Hunt with “Red Band” variants are going back to print.

All five of the second print covers feature “bloody” versions of the original Blood Hunt covers by superstar artists Pepe Larrraz and Marte Gracia, and they will all be released into comic book stores on August 28th.

How do the Red Band versions of the comic books work?

The concept of the Red Band variants is that for stories that would theoretically involve a lot of blood and gore, there’s only a certain amount of blood and gore that you can fit into a regular comic book. So, for Blood Hunt, which involves some rather bloody deaths, writer Jed MacKay, and artists Larraz and Gracia, would do alternate versions of some of the scenes in the comic book, making them much more over the top and bloody.

This is why these comics are shipped polybagged, both because Marvel wouldn’t want an unsuspecting reader to browse through the comic and become exposed to R-rated content, but also so that if you WERE curious about these alternate pages, you would be able to spoil them for yourselves. That’s why these alternate pages are exclusive to the PRINT editions of Blood Hunt. It is meant as a nice extra sales boon for comic book retailers.

What other Red Band comics does Marvel have planned?

What does Larraz think of doing Red Band versions?

Marvel has already announced a number of upcoming Red Band comics, including a Werewolf by Night one-shot, and also the upcoming Wolverine: Revenge miniseries by Jonathan Hickman and Greg Capullo, that marks the return of Capullo to Marvel Comics (he was a star artist at Marvel in the early 1990s before succeeding Todd McFarlane as the artist on Spawn, a book where Capullo featured a good deal of blood and gore during his acclaimed run on that series, as well).

In a press release, Marvel quoted Larraz about the Red Band variants, where he noted, “The Red Band pages are really interesting to me. They allow me to convey the dark, violent, blood tone of this particular story and flex new muscles that I don’t usually get to use in a super hero comic. And I’m not going to lie, they’re so fun!”

Blood Hunt:Red Band Edition #1-5 are due out on August 28th.

Source: Marvel Comics