variant cover

In comic books, a variant cover (sometimes variant edition) refers to an issue of a comic book printed with multiple covers, each with unique cover art. The first comic book marketed with a variant cover was the 1986 first issue of The Man of Steel, which featured two different covers by writer/artist John Byrne. Variant covers became more common during the "Speculator Boom" of the 1990s, when more collectors became interested in the storage and preservation of their comic books with the goal of future financial gain than reading the comics themselves.