[NoodleChow]

hmmm interesting question. and yeah pretty weird to quantify since things like clear vision were supposed to be the variant but it turned out to be easier to find. clear dr strange is supposed to be the variant but shipped in mass quantities in north america first then turned into normal strange. x-men outfit wolverine started out with a crappy smushed headsculpt and then had a running change of the nicer head. cable came with hope then had a running change of a cable without hope.

i guess it all comes down to intention really. a true way to do variants is to continue packing them into places like revision waves. like if death variant archangel sometimes popped up in revision cases that primarily are supposed to have normal archangels packed in. but since hasbro doesn't do that, anything after initial release can be seen as a running change. i'd say clear vision is the running change and clear dr strange is for sure a variant. the new packaging is considered a running change but also can be seen as a variant.

in my mind, anything different from the intended release is a variant including running changes. so technically, the term "running change" is like the inbetween classification for variants.