Action Comics #7

The cover the publisher held back

Superman arrived on the cover of Action Comics #1, on sale April 18, 1938, a new anthology from the company that later became DC. According to the standard history of the title, publisher Harry Donenfeld thought the feature ridiculous when he saw the printed book and ordered that Superman never appear on the cover again. Only when reports of strong sales, and follow-up checks, showed that Superman was the reason did the character return. He did not become a permanent cover fixture until issue #19.

Action Comics #7, cover dated December 1938, was the first time he came back. One auction description puts it plainly: the brass at National Comics was still reluctant to admit that the Man of Steel was moving all those copies, and several more issues would pass before Superman became the regular cover star. The copyright filing gives the issue's publication date as October 25, 1938; one modern digital listing gives December 7, 1938, and this page follows the filing.

The comic cost 10 cents for 68 pages and was edited by Vin Sullivan. Like every early issue of Action Comics, it was an anthology: after Superman came the western hero Chuck Dawson, the football star Pep Morgan, a Marco Polo serial, the Diddle Family, a Sport-Data panel, Coyote Canyon Bill and a text story, along with ads for Lionel trains, fireworks and fencing swords.

Siegel, Shuster and the hands behind them

Jerry Siegel, credited on the story as Jerome Siegel, wrote the Superman feature. Joe Shuster, his co-creator, drew and inked the cover. Superman had begun as their idea for a newspaper strip, and the two had spent years trying to sell it before the strips were cut and pasted into comic-book pages for Action Comics #1.

Who drew the inside of issue #7 is less settled. The main bibliographic index of comics credits the 13-page Superman story to Wayne Boring, ghosting for Shuster, with partial inks by Shuster himself; Boring had been one of Shuster's assistants and became a major Superman artist by 1942. An auction description instead credits the story art to Shuster, Fred Guardineer and Bernard Baily. Guardineer, by the index, drew the Pep Morgan feature, which Gardner Fox wrote. The sources do not agree, so this page gives Shuster the cover and notes the dispute over the interior.

The index also records a costume detail of the period: in this story Superman wears yellow boots, and the S on his chest is all yellow.

Superman joins the circus

The lead story opens at the Daily Star, where Clark Kent is being ribbed by a coworker named Curly before his editor sends him to interview the owner of the struggling Jordan Circus. Clark overhears Mr. Jordan arguing with Derek Niles, who holds Jordan's promissory notes and wants either his money or a partnership. The circus is playing to empty seats.

Superman offers himself as the circus strongman, and the crowds pour in. Niles hires a thug named Trigger to stage accidents: a lion gets loose, a trapeze shatters, a tent pole breaks, and each time Superman saves the day. Lois Lane, trying to sneak into Superman's dressing room, is captured and taken to Niles. Superman forces the truth out of Trigger, rescues Lois, and Niles faints from fright before both men are jailed. Back at the paper, someone reaches into a room and tears the clothes off Curly.

The cover is quieter than the story. Shuster shows Superman high above the city holding a man in a green suit; one auction description reads it as Superman dangling a criminal over Metropolis, while a collector guide describes him saving a man from a fall. Two collector guides say it is the first cover to print the word "Superman," in a banner at the lower left.

Exhibit 18: the Court copy

The most famous copy of Action Comics #7 went to court. In 1939 Detective Comics Inc. sued Bruns Publications, publisher of Wonder Comics, whose hero Wonderman it said copied Superman. The Court copy was entered as Exhibit 18 and still bears two date stamps from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, one of March 16, 1939, and one of April 6, 1939.

Judge Woolsey of the federal court in Manhattan found that the May 1939 issue of Wonder Comics, the only one published, made unfair use of the plaintiff's pictures and text. His decree, issued April 7, 1939, and amended June 2, 1939, granted a permanent injunction forbidding further publication of Wonderman in any form that trespassed on Superman. The decree lists the copyright registrations for each issue of Action Comics, including the December 1938 issue, registered December 22, 1938.

On appeal, the Second Circuit, in an opinion by Augustus N. Hand with Learned Hand on the panel, decided on April 29, 1940, that a benevolent strongman as a type was an idea and could not be monopolized, but that Bruns had copied Superman's specific expression. It narrowed the injunction. Wonderman folded, and the decision became a precedent for later Superman suits, including the suit over Captain Marvel.

The Court copy, graded CGC 5.5 and from the collection of Jon Berk, sold for $204,000 in September 2020. It was then the finest unrestored copy its seller had offered in more than 12 years, and the census at the time showed one copy at 5.5 with four higher.

How rare, and how to read a copy

Action Comics #7 is far scarcer than its fame suggests. In 2021 an auction listing described it as having just over fifty copies on the grading census. A collector guide reports that only 29 of 47 known copies are unrestored. In February 2026 an auction description said that unrestored, Universal-grade copies top out at VF 8.0, and that a restored copy graded Apparent 9.6 sat at the top of the census overall. A guide describes the issue as turning up on the market less often than Action Comics #1.

Restoration matters a great deal. The copy behind this entry's reference price, graded CGC 7.0 with white pages and sold in June 2021, is a restored book: its label notes moderate restoration, with color touch, pieces added, reinforcement, cleaning and interior lightening. Restoration weighs heavily on price. In 2017 an unrestored CGC 4.0 brought $125,000; in 2021 the restored 7.0 brought $31,611.

The issue's cover later had a second life. In 1939 DC produced an ashcan edition titled Superman Comics to secure the copyright for a new title, with a black-and-white reprint of the Action Comics #7 cover. Only three or four copies are believed to have been made, two are on the census, and one graded CGC 8.5 sold for $288,000 in 2022.

The numbers

Cover price

10 cents

Pages

68; the Superman story about 13

Print run

Not documented in the sources consulted

Known copies

47 known, 29 of them unrestored, per a collector guide (undated)

Census, September 2020

One copy at 5.5 with four higher (as reported for the Court copy)

Census, June 2021

Just over fifty copies, per an auction listing

Census, February 2026

Universal-grade copies top out at VF 8.0; a restored Apparent 9.6 is the highest copy overall

Timeline

1. Apr 18, 1938

   Action Comics #1 introduces Superman on its cover.

2. Oct 25, 1938

   Action Comics #7, cover dated December 1938, is published, by the copyright filing.

3. Dec 22, 1938

   The December 1938 issue of Action Comics is registered for copyright.

4. Mar 16, 1939

   The Court copy is stamped by the federal court in Manhattan as an exhibit in the Wonderman suit.

5. Apr 6, 1939

   The Court copy receives a second court date stamp.

6. Apr 7, 1939

   Judge Woolsey enjoins further publication of Wonderman; the decree is amended June 2, 1939.

7. 1939

   DC produces the Superman Comics ashcan, reprinting this issue's cover in black and white.

8. Apr 29, 1940

   The Second Circuit affirms infringement but narrows the injunction.

9. 2002

   A CGC 2.0 copy sells for $2,500.

10. Feb 2008

    The highest-graded unrestored copy, a CGC 8.0, sells for $143,400.

11. May 1, 2017

    An unrestored CGC 4.0 sells for $125,000 after 15 bids.

12. Sep 2020

    The Court copy, CGC 5.5, sells for $204,000, a record for the issue.

13. Jun 22, 2021

    A restored CGC 7.0, the copy behind this entry's reference price, sells for $31,611 after 11 bids.

14. Jan 2025

    A CGC Conserved 6.0 sells for $75,000.

15. Feb 2026

    A restored copy graded Apparent 9.6, the top of the census, sells for $48,800.

The world in 1938

• Sep 21, 1938

  The New England Hurricane strikes Long Island and southern New England, killing about 600 people.

• Oct 9, 1938

  The New York Yankees sweep the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series.

• Oct 16, 1938

  Winston Churchill, broadcasting to the United States, condemns the Munich Agreement.

• Oct 24, 1938

  A federal minimum wage takes effect in the United States.

• Oct 30, 1938

  Orson Welles's radio version 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.

• Nov 10, 1938

  Kate Smith first sings Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" on her radio show.

• Nov 15, 1938

  The new Jefferson nickel is released, replacing the buffalo nickel.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Action Comics #7 is number 45 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 (53 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• After Action Comics #1, the publisher reportedly ordered that Superman never appear on the cover again, until sales proved he was the draw.
• One copy of this issue was Exhibit 18 in the 1939 lawsuit against Wonderman, and still carries the court's date stamps.
• In this story Superman wears yellow boots and an all-yellow S.
• Lois Lane is kidnapped by the circus villain's thug, and Superman rescues her.
• The 1939 Superman Comics ashcan reused this issue's cover in black and white; only three or four were believed made.
• Restoration changes everything: a restored CGC 7.0 sold for about a quarter of what an unrestored 4.0 brought four years earlier.