Action Comics #1

Two kids from Glenville High

Jerry Siegel was born in Cleveland in 1914. Joe Shuster was born in Toronto the same year, the son of a tailor, and his family moved to Cleveland when he was about ten. The two met at Glenville High School, bonded over science fiction, and graduated in June 1934. Shuster was poor enough as a boy that he drew on the blank backs of discarded wallpaper rolls; "it was a goldmine for me," he recalled.

In January 1933 Siegel wrote "The Reign of the Superman," illustrated by Shuster, for a science fiction fanzine. In that story the superman was a vagrant who gains psychic powers and turns to crime. Later that year the pair reworked the idea into a hero and spent several years pitching it as a newspaper strip, without success.

Shuster drew Superman's physique from the silent-film star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and based Clark Kent partly on the comic actor Harold Lloyd and partly on himself. He modeled the city of Metropolis on his hometown of Toronto and named the Daily Star after the Toronto paper he had once worked for.

How Superman got into Action Comics

By 1935 Siegel and Shuster were selling stories to National Allied Publications, the company that became DC Comics. When editor Vin Sullivan needed material for a new anthology title, Action Comics, he bought their rejected Superman newspaper strips and had Siegel and Shuster adapt them for the new comic. In March 1938 the pair signed over the rights to Superman to Detective Comics, Inc. for $130, or $10 a page, along with a contract to keep supplying material.

Action Comics #1 went on sale on April 18, 1938, with a June cover date. It cost ten cents and ran 68 pages. Superman took the first 13 pages; the rest of the anthology held ten other features, among them Zatara the magician and the cowboy Tex Thomson. On the cover, Superman hoists a car over his head.

The print run is usually given as 200,000 copies. A count from testimony in a copyright case, Detective Comics, Inc. v. Bruns Publications, put the newsstand draw for the issue at 202,000 copies, of which about 130,000 sold. By January 1939 the company's four titles together were selling 709,379 copies.

Why so few survive

Comic books in 1938 were cheap and disposable. Today only about 50 to 100 copies of Action Comics #1 are thought to exist. One comics historian estimated the survival rate at roughly 0.05 percent of the original copies.

The grading census shows how scarce sound copies are. In April 2021 it listed 41 copies with unrestored, or Universal, grades: two at CGC 9.0 and one at 8.5, plus 30 restored copies and one with a qualified grade. By April 2024 the census had recorded 78 copies, 44 of them in Universal grades. When the record copy sold in January 2026 the census still held fewer than 100 copies, with just two graded 9.0.

Copies turn up in unlikely places. One CGC 9.0 copy was bought from the family of its original owner in West Virginia in the late 1970s, after spending decades in a hope chest. A CGC 8.5 copy was preserved for more than 50 years in a stack of 1930s movie magazines. In 2010 a family facing foreclosure found a copy, later graded CGC 5.0, that sold for $436,000.

The Nicolas Cage copy

The most famous single copy is a CGC 9.0 once owned by the actor Nicolas Cage. It sold at auction in 1992 for a reported $82,000 to $82,500 (accounts differ), and Cage bought it for $150,000 in the mid-1990s; sources disagree on whether that was 1996 or 1997.

In 2000 the comic went missing from Cage's home during a party, along with copies of Detective Comics #27 and Detective Comics #1. It stayed lost for more than a decade. In April 2011 Los Angeles police recovered it from a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley, and it was returned to Cage.

On November 30, 2011, the recovered copy sold in an online auction for $2,161,000, the first comic book to pass $2 million. On January 9, 2026, its sale for $15 million in a private transaction was announced. Neither buyer nor seller was named. The price far exceeded the previous record for any comic, $9.12 million paid for a CGC 9.0 Superman #1 in November 2025.

The million-dollar comic

Action Comics #1 has held, lost and retaken the record for the most valuable comic book again and again. On February 22, 2010, a CGC 8.0 copy sold for $1 million in an online auction, the first comic book to reach seven figures and more than triple the previous record of $317,200 paid for a 6.0 copy. About five weeks later a CGC 8.5 brought $1.5 million.

On August 24, 2014, the West Virginia hope-chest copy, graded CGC 9.0 with white pages, sold in an online auction for $3,207,852, the first comic past $3 million. A CGC 8.5 copy sold in an online auction for $2,052,000 on June 12, 2018, the book's 80th anniversary year, and the same copy then changed hands privately for $3.25 million in April 2021. In January 2022 a CGC 6.0 copy brought $3.18 million at auction.

On April 4, 2024, a CGC 8.5 copy known as the Kansas City pedigree sold at auction for $6 million, at the time the world auction record for any comic book. Less than two years later, the Cage copy's $15 million private sale set the overall record. "Action Comics #1 is the foundation of the entire comic book industry," the president of the grading company said at the time.

What the creators got

Superman made Siegel and Shuster prosperous for a time; in 1942 they together earned $63,776.46. But they did not own the character. A 1947 lawsuit ended in a settlement of a little over $94,000 in exchange for giving up their claims to the copyrights.

Shuster's eyesight failed. By 1964 he was working as a freelance cartoonist and deliveryman, and he later became nearly blind. In 1975 a settlement with Warner Bros. gave them a lifetime stipend of $20,000 a year, later raised to $30,000. Shuster died on July 30, 1992, and Siegel on January 28, 1996. Canada's Joe Shuster Awards, established in 2005, honor Canadian comic creators in his name.

The numbers

Cover price

10 cents

Pages

68

Superman's story

Pages 1 to 13; one of 11 features

Newsstand draw (court testimony)

202,000 printed for distribution, about 130,000 sold

Census, April 2021

41 Universal grades: two CGC 9.0, one CGC 8.5; 30 restored; one qualified

Census, April 2024

78 copies recorded, 44 in Universal grades

Census, January 2026

Fewer than 100 copies; two at CGC 9.0

Creators' payment

$130 for the rights, $10 a page

Timeline

1. Jan 1933

   Jerry Siegel publishes "The Reign of the Superman," illustrated by Joe Shuster, in a science fiction fanzine.

2. 1933

   Siegel and Shuster begin developing Superman as a heroic newspaper strip.

3. Mar 1938

   The creators sign over the rights to Superman to Detective Comics, Inc. for $130.

4. Apr 18, 1938

   Action Comics #1 goes on sale for ten cents, with a June 1938 cover date.

5. 1947

   Siegel and Shuster's lawsuit over Superman ends in a settlement of a little over $94,000.

6. 1975

   A settlement with Warner Bros. gives the creators a lifetime stipend of $20,000 a year.

7. 1992

   The CGC 9.0 copy later owned by Nicolas Cage sells at auction for about $82,000.

8. 2000

   Cage's copy is stolen from his home during a party.

9. Feb 22, 2010

   A CGC 8.0 copy becomes the first comic book to sell for $1 million.

10. Apr 2011

    Los Angeles police recover Cage's copy from a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley.

11. Nov 30, 2011

    Cage's copy sells in an online auction for $2,161,000, the first comic past $2 million.

12. Aug 24, 2014

    The West Virginia hope-chest copy, CGC 9.0, sells in an online auction for $3,207,852.

13. Jun 12, 2018

    A CGC 8.5 copy sells in an online auction for $2,052,000.

14. Apr 6, 2021

    The same CGC 8.5 copy sells privately for $3.25 million.

15. Jan 16, 2022

    A CGC 6.0 copy sells at auction for $3.18 million.

16. Apr 4, 2024

    The Kansas City pedigree copy, CGC 8.5, sells at auction for $6 million, then the auction record for any comic.

17. Jan 9, 2026

    The Cage copy's private sale for $15 million is announced, the most ever paid for a comic book.

The world in 1938

• Mar 12, 1938

  German troops occupy Austria; the Anschluss is declared the next day.

• Jun 19, 1938

  Italy beats Hungary 4 to 2 to win the World Cup in France.

• Jun 22, 1938

  Joe Louis knocks out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium.

• Jul 3, 1938

  The steam locomotive Mallard sets a world speed record for steam of 125.88 mph.

• Jul 14, 1938

  Howard Hughes completes a 91-hour flight around the world.

• Sep 29, 1938

  The Munich Agreement hands the Sudetenland to Germany.

• Oct 30, 1938

  Orson Welles's radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds causes panic in parts of the country.

• Nov 1, 1938

  Seabiscuit beats War Admiral by four lengths in their match race at Pimlico.

Price record

A realized private sale is a completed transaction outside an auction room. The amount is what changed hands on the date shown. Private sales are reported less consistently than auction results, so a single comparable carries less weight than a run of them.

By reference price, Action Comics #1 is number 1 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (1 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to Superman for $130, or $10 a page.
• Before he was a hero, the first "Superman" Siegel wrote, in January 1933, was a vagrant with psychic powers who turned to crime.
• Metropolis was modeled on Joe Shuster's hometown of Toronto.
• Nicolas Cage's copy was stolen during a party at his house in 2000 and found in a storage locker eleven years later.
• One CGC 9.0 copy spent decades in a hope chest in West Virginia.
• A family facing foreclosure in 2010 found a copy that later sold for $436,000.
• As a poor child, Joe Shuster drew on the backs of discarded wallpaper rolls.