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.

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. One featured a full shot of Superman ripping open the shirt comprising part of his civilian clothing to reveal the Kryptonian "S" emblem on his chest, along with a shot of the spaceship that brought him to Earth escaping Krypton. The other cover featured a closeup of Superman's chest as he rips open his shirt.

In reaction to the boom, comic book publishers began to market specifically to the collectors' market. Knowing that many collectors are completists, buying, for example, every issue featuring a certain character, publishers began to produce comics with multiple covers, and completists and speculators alike bought them by the millions. The variants often depended on whether the copy was sold through the direct market or at a newsstand.

X-Men #1, from 1991, is the best-selling comic book of all time, with sales of over 8.1 million copies and nearly $7 million, according to a public proclamation by Guinness World Records at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con. The sales figures were generated in part by publishing the issue with five different variant covers, designated #1A, #1B, #1C, #1D, and #1E. The first four covers show different characters from the book that form a single image when laid side by side, and a fifth, gatefold cover of that combined image, large numbers of which were purchased by retailers, who anticipated fans and speculators who would buy multiple copies in order to acquire a complete collection of the covers.

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