SUPERMAN TO THE RESCUE

The Comic That Saved a Family

Superman (or Clark Kent, as he preferred to be called) made his comic book debut in the first issue of Action Comics in June 1938. Its cover shows Superman himself, draped in his trademark red cape, lifting an exploding car, as businessmen cower and flee in terror. Despite the future popularity of the handsome superhero from planet Krypton, however,  Action Comics, Issue 1, contains only thirteen pages of Superman comics out of a total of sixty-four pages. It also featured nine other stories, such as “The Adventures of Marco Polo,” and “Scooby the Five Star Reporter” (which has nothing to do with the beloved Great Dane, Scooby-Doo).

Roughly 200,000 copies of Action Comics, Issue 1, were printed originally, and it retailed in the US at a cover price of 10 cents. Accounting for inflation, this would only be about $1.50 in 2019. Nowadays, a copy of Action Comics, Issue 1, is hard to come by, as most of the original 200,000 were discarded or lost over the succeeding decades. Comics Buyers’ Guide notes that an estimated fifty to one hundred copies still exist, and an even smaller percentage of that amount are in decent condition. If you can manage to get your hands on an Action Comics, Issue 1, that is in top condition, however, buyers will pay handsomely. In February 2010, one such copy fetched $1 million. A month later, another copy sold for $1.5 million. And in 2011, a third copy sold for $2.16 million—easily a record in the comic book world.

Although this certainly is impressive, and fortunate for those lucky sellers, the sale of a less well-kept copy (a 5 out of 10 compared to those million-dollar copies rated 8 and up) may be more fitting of the Superman name. As reported by ABC News, a family in the American South was packing up their house for a move in the summer of 2010 when they came across a copy of Action Comics, Issue 1. They soon got in contact with ComicConnect.com, a marketplace and auction house that brokered the deals for the million-dollar comics. The company agreed to auction it off and noted that the comic could fetch a price as high as $250,000.

While most would be ecstatic to hear that they had found a quarter of a million dollars just sitting on a shelf and collecting dust, for this family, the discovery was more than just a windfall. The reason they were moving? Their house was in arrears and the bank was about to foreclose. Until Superman appeared, that is! ComicConnect.com contacted the bank and explained the situation. The bank agreed to hold on the foreclosure until the comic was sold. The comic ended up selling for more than $400,000, and the family was able to keep their home.

BONUS FACT

The $2.16 million paid when a copy of Action Comics, Issue 1, was sold did not go to a homeowner at risk of foreclosure. Most likely, it went to an insurance company. In 2000, a copy of the comic owned by actor Nicolas Cage was stolen; it turned up over a decade later, in 2011. Unfortunately Cage wasn’t on the receiving end of the $2.16 million; after the theft, his insurance company paid him an estimated $1 million. It’s likely that the insurance company took possession of the recovered comic and sold it to recoup the settlement cost.