[SPLIT LIP]

Basically Hasbro got wise to how retailers only ever over-order one wave of a few characters and jam-pack shelves with them. So by introducing variants they can have more shelf diversity.

This is also the reason you'll sometimes see characters from different series mixed together. Retailers won't necesarily want a certain wave of one series, but for example throw some Spider-man figures in that wave (and whatever figures they replaced go into Spidey's wave) and they'll buy both. That's why the upcoming Avengers wave is such a hodge-podge.