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When Action Comics #1 (1938) sold for US$6 million dollars last week, it was just over 14 years since the humble comic book first smashed through the $1.0 million barrier at auction on 23 February 2010. No comic had previously sold for more than $350,000, but Action Comics #1 was the first to sell for seven figures.
Thirty eight comics have now sold for more than US$1.0 million, two Superman comics are now locked in battle for comic book price supremacy, and the rising tide has pushed all comic prices into the art domain. A birds-eye view of the data offers some fascinating insights into the superhero hierarchy in a rapidly heating marketplace.
Superman was the original super hero, first appearing in “Action Comics #1” which became such a runaway sales success that he catalyzed a new media genre based around narrative art and superheroes.
The place of the comic in American history was never in question, but the rapid appreciation of comic book prices to art house levels offers some interesting insights into the public’s perceptions of the superhero genre and the pecking order at the top.
Superman dominates the category by most measures, locked in a battle with himself over which is the most valuable comic.
Action Comics #1 (1938) has been the most valuable Superman comic since comic collecting began, breaking its own record time after time, being the first comic to crack $1.0 million, $2.0 million and $3.0 million before losing the record to Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first appearance of Spider-Man) at $3.6 million in September 2021 and the first Superman #1 comic book from 1939 that privately traded hands in January 2022 for $5.3 million.
In reclaiming the title of the world’s most expensive comic book at $6 million, Action Comics #1 has appreciated 600% in 14 years, and Superman now holds both first and second places in the million dollar club.
Action Comics #1 sold out its entire 200,000-print run at 10 cents a copy in June 1938. Many large paper drives for the war effort are believed to have massively culled the number of extant copies during the 1940s, and less than 100 copies are believed to exist, with just 78 copies recorded in the CGC Census.
The success of Action Comics #1 and its feature character saw the launch of Superman #1 in 1939, the first comic dedicated solely to Superman. Knowing how quickly the 200,000 print run of the first issue of Action Comics #1 had sold out, the publishers printed 500,000 copies, sold out, then printed another 250,000 copies and sold them out too. A final third printing took the grand total of Superman #1 copies produced to 900,000, with subsequent issues of the Superman comic series printing in excess of a million copies an issue.
That’s a lot of comics, but attrition rates for 85-year old paper items are brutal and doubly so for items initially considered to be disposable. Despite printing more than four times the number of Action Comics #1 , there are now just 165 copies of Superman #1 extant.
So while Superman had been temporarily dethroned, the sale of a pristine copy of Superman #1 for $5.3 million put Superman back on top of the pile, but created even more competition for top spot.
When we put the above list together, we started trying to rank the superheroes using the data, to try to get a picture of the public’s perception of the superhero class structure.
Superman clearly dominates the category, but the power structure of the superhero pantheon is different depending on which angle you examine it from.
By the highest prices achieved, it’s Superman first, Spider-Man second and Captain America third.
By the number of entries in the million dollar club, it’s Superman first, Batman second and Spider-Man third.
Even by the number of each issue that has sold for more than a million, “Action Comics #1” has sold for a million 12 times, “Detective Comics #27 (the first appearance of Batman) has sold for a million eight times, while “Batman #1” and “Superman #1” have each sold four times for more than a million.
Of the 38 known sales in excess of US$1.0 million, Heritage Auctions has sold 17, just edging out ComicConnect’s 14 million dollar sales, Goldin Auctions’ four and Comiclink’s one. Two were private sales.
