To explore the differences in structural and aerodynamic characteristics of the variable-sweep wings on aircraft under various swept deformation methods, as well as the underlying physical mechanisms of these differences, this paper proposes two shearing variable-sweep schemes based on parallelogram unit shear deformation topology, and a comparative study was conducted with a conventional rotary variable-sweep wing. First, the structural characteristics of the three deformation modes are investigated by four main parameters: wing area, chord ratio, root-to-apex ratio and relative thickness of the wing. Then, numerical simulations of the winding flow field in a wide range of speeds are carried out to analyze the aerodynamic characteristics and mechanisms under the three deformation modes. Finally, for the diagonal shear variable-sweep wing with optimal aerodynamic performance, the length-width ratio of the parallelogram unit is optimized with the optimization objective functions of wing area, chord ratio and root chord length at supersonic cruise state. A deformable prototype is developed for wind tunnel testing. The results demonstrate that, across a wide range of speed, diagonal shear variable-sweep can obtain a better lift-to-drag ratio, the difference mainly arises from the fact that the airfoil of the wingtip section of the diagonal shear variable-sweep is intact and the relative thickness of the wing is smaller. When the aspect ratio of the parallelogram unit is 1.75, the comprehensive aerodynamic performance of the morphing wing is the best.