Variants are counterparts, usually of a person, from alternate realities and/or displacements in time.

Special Cases

• Some beings are allegedly unique in the Multiverse. For example, Rachel Summers is supposedly a multiversal anomaly with no true counterparts from other timelines. This makes her an especially stable time-traveller.^[1] This also appears to be the case for Morlun and the rest of the Inheritors as they had no counterparts.^[2] It is not clear what happens to these beings if a timeline experiences a divergence.
• Some beings exist throughout the Multiverse simultaneously; thus, their "variants" are actually aspects of themselves.
  • Examples: Celestials,^[3] Eternity and Infinity,^[4] the Living Tribunal,^[5] and the Molecule Man.^[6]
• The Beyonders are from outside the Multiverse, so they do not normally have counterparts. However, when they entered the Multiverse in New Avengers (Vol. 3) #30, they existed in all realities simultaneously (similar to the above examples) and slaughtered the cosmic entities of every reality at once.
• It's possible for variants to be native to the same reality if one's parents are interdimensional travelers. For example: Anti-Venom II was born when Spider-Venom was visiting Earth-41940, where a native Anti-Venom already existed.^[7]
  • It's also possible for variants to be native to the same reality even if there are no discernible reasons for it. For example: Jewel (Jessica Jones) and Knightress (Jessica Jones) existed in the same reality, with Knightress being an adult vigilante and Jewel being a teenaged villain.^[8]

Trivia

• The term was popularized in Marvel Studios' Loki. The comics have since adopted it. Before this, generic terms such as "counterparts," "alternates," and "alternate reality selves" were used interchangeably.

1. ↑ Knights of X #4
2. ↑ Superior Spider-Man #33
3. ↑ X-Termination #1
4. ↑ Marvel Comics #1000
5. ↑ Fantastic Four Annual #23
6. ↑ New Avengers (Vol. 3) #33
7. ↑ Spider-Man Unlimited
8. ↑ The Variants #5