All-American Comics #16

A lantern in the subway

In January 1940 a young freelance artist named Martin Nodell was standing in the 34th Street subway station in Manhattan when he noticed a trainman waving a lantern along the darkened tracks. He combined that picture with Richard Wagner's operatic Ring cycle, Chinese folklore and Greek mythology into a new kind of hero: a man whose magic ring drew its power from a green lantern.

Nodell had been doing some work for Sheldon Mayer, an editor at All-American Publications, and wanted steadier employment. He sent in a presentation. As he later recalled, he waited into the second week before being called into the office of publisher Max Gaines, who flipped through the pages for a long time and then said, 'We like it!' and 'Get to work!' Nodell drew the first five pages of an eight-page story before writer Bill Finger was brought in to help.

The character was first going to be called Alan Ladd, a play on Aladdin, but the name was changed to Alan Scott to avoid confusion with the actor of the same name. He made his debut in All-American Comics #16, cover-dated July 1940, with a cover by Sheldon Moldoff.

The green flame

The origin story is a myth in miniature. Thousands of years earlier, a mystical green flame fell to Earth in ancient China as a meteor and foretold that it would act three times: once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power. A lamp-maker forged the meteor's metal into a lamp and was killed by frightened villagers, who were then destroyed by the flame. In modern times the lamp passed to a patient in a mental institution, who reshaped it into a train lantern and had his sanity restored.

The third act belonged to Alan Scott, a young railroad engineer. After surviving the wreck of a sabotaged train, he found the lantern, fashioned a ring from its material, and set out to find the man responsible for the crash. The ring let him fly, pass through solid objects, hypnotize people and melt metal. It could protect him from anything made of metal but not from anything made of wood.

Green Lantern became one of All-American's biggest successes. Within months he was a founding member of the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940), and his own title, Green Lantern, followed with a first issue cover-dated July 1941. He stayed in All-American Comics through issue #102 in October 1948, after which the title became All-American Western.

Mart Dellon and the men around him

Martin Nodell was born in Philadelphia on November 15, 1915, the son of Jewish immigrants. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later at Pratt Institute in New York, worked as an actor in both cities, and sold theatrical caricatures before turning to comic books in 1938.

He signed his early Green Lantern work 'Mart Dellon.' In 2000 he explained why: 'Comics were a forbidden literature, culturally unacceptable. It wasn't something you were proud of.' He penciled and inked the character through Green Lantern #25 in May 1947.

In 1950 Nodell left comics for advertising. At the Leo Burnett agency in Chicago, his design team developed the Pillsbury Doughboy in 1965. He received the Inkpot Award in 1986 and died on December 9, 2006, at 91.

All-American Publications was founded in 1939 by Max Gaines with money from Harry Donenfeld, owner of the companies behind Action Comics and Detective Comics, on the condition that Jack Liebowitz become Gaines's partner. All-American kept separate offices on Lafayette Street but used the 'DC' logo on its covers. Gaines sold his share to Liebowitz by June 1945, and the companies were merged into National Comics Publications, today's DC Comics, by 1946.

Scarce in any grade, nearly absent in high grade

All-American Comics #16 is known among collectors as one of the hardest Golden Age keys to find in high grade. One explanation offered by the grading company is simple: it was the sixteenth issue of an anthology, not a first issue, so few readers thought to save it. Several famous pedigree collections, including Windy City and Denver, lack it, and the copies from two other well-known collections are missing coupons.

The finest known copy came from the Edgar Church collection, the trove of Golden Age comics discovered in 1976 and known as the 'Mile High' pedigree. Collector John Verzyl owned it from 1984 and handled it himself, even when it was photographed for a reference book in the late 1980s. When he finally submitted it for grading, in March 2008, it received CGC 9.4. At the time, the grading company reported only 12 unrestored copies certified, with the next best at 6.0 and three copies at 5.5. Verzyl had assembled a complete high-grade run of All-American Comics #16 through #102, 75 of them Mile High copies.

That 9.4 has never been offered at public auction. A 2019 auction description noted it was then the only 9.4 among the six most valuable Golden Age issues other than the Windy City Marvel Comics #1. One dealer guide reports a private offer of $1 million for it; an offer is not a sale, and no sale price for it has been published.

The 6.5 and the public record

Because the two best copies have stayed private, the public price record for All-American Comics #16 is set by mid-grade books. A CGC 6.5 copy sold at auction in 2015 for more than $110,000.

On February 22, 2018, another CGC 6.5 (FN+) copy with off-white pages, from a collection identified as the Simi Valley Collection, sold at auction in Dallas for $215,100, the highest public price recorded for the issue in the sources reviewed. The grader's notes list a large light crease on the back cover, corner wear, multiple creases on the front cover, a marker or pen mark at the center of the spine, a small tear on the back cover and a subscription crease. At the time, the CGC census showed three copies at 6.5 and two higher.

Those two higher unrestored copies are reported as an 8.0 and the Mile High 9.4. Neither had been offered at public auction as of the most recent auction descriptions consulted.

The numbers

Print run

Not documented in the sources reviewed

CGC census, as of September 2022

60 copies recorded, per an auction listing

CGC census, February 2018

3 copies at 6.5, 2 higher

Highest grades (unrestored)

CGC 9.4 (Edgar Church/Mile High) and a CGC 8.0, per auction-house descriptions

CGC census, March 2008

12 unrestored copies; next finest after the 9.4 was a 6.0

Run in All-American Comics

Green Lantern appeared in issues #16 to #102 (July 1940 to October 1948)

Timeline

1. Nov 15, 1915

   Martin Nodell is born in Philadelphia.

2. 1939

   Max Gaines founds All-American Publications.

3. Apr 1939

   All-American Comics #1 is published.

4. Jan 1940

   Nodell sees a trainman's lantern in the 34th Street subway station and conceives Green Lantern.

5. Jul 1940

   All-American Comics #16 introduces Alan Scott, the Green Lantern (reported published July 10, 1940).

6. 1940

   Green Lantern joins the first Justice Society of America in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940).

7. Jul 1941

   Green Lantern gets his own title.

8. 1946

   All-American and its titles are merged into National Comics Publications, today's DC Comics.

9. Oct 1948

   Green Lantern's run in All-American Comics ends with issue #102.

10. 1965

    Nodell's advertising team develops the Pillsbury Doughboy.

11. 1976

    The Edgar Church ('Mile High') collection, including the finest All-American Comics #16, is discovered.

12. 1984

    John Verzyl acquires the Mile High copy.

13. Dec 9, 2006

    Martin Nodell dies at 91.

14. Mar 12, 2008

    The grading company announces it has certified the Mile High copy CGC 9.4, the finest known.

15. 2015

    A CGC 6.5 copy sells at auction for more than $110,000.

16. Feb 22, 2018

    A CGC 6.5 copy sells at auction in Dallas for $215,100.

17. Nov 2019

    A Marvel Comics #1 auction description notes the All-American #16 9.4 as one of only two 9.4s among the top six Golden Age keys.

The world in 1940

• Feb 7, 1940

  Walt Disney's Pinocchio is released.

• Apr 25, 1940

  The Joker and Catwoman debut in Batman #1.

• May 15, 1940

  The first McDonald's opens in San Bernardino, California, and nylon stockings go on sale nationwide.

• Jul 1, 1940

  The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens; it collapses in a windstorm on November 7.

• Jul 15, 1940

  The Democratic convention opens in Chicago and nominates Franklin D. Roosevelt for a third term.

• Jul 27, 1940

  Bugs Bunny debuts in A Wild Hare.

• Sep 16, 1940

  Roosevelt signs the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.

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, All-American Comics #16 is number 23 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 (13 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Alan Scott was almost named Alan Ladd, after Aladdin, until someone noticed there was a real actor by that name.
• The original Green Lantern's ring could not protect him from anything made of wood.
• Martin Nodell, Green Lantern's creator, later led the advertising design team that developed the Pillsbury Doughboy.
• Nodell signed his first Green Lantern stories 'Mart Dellon' because, he said, comics were 'a forbidden literature.'
• Collectors and graders explain the comic's scarcity by its issue number: as the sixteenth issue of an anthology, few readers saved it.
• Green Lantern's 1948 canine sidekick, Streak, became popular enough to appear on covers without the hero.