Marvels #1

Superheroes seen from the street

Marvels was a four-issue limited series published from January to April 1994, written by Kurt Busiek and painted by Alex Ross. Instead of following a hero, it follows Phil Sheldon, a New York news photographer, as he watches the Marvel Universe unfold from 1939 to the mid-1970s. Busiek and Ross began working together on it in 1993.

Issue #1 carries a January 1994 cover date and is listed among comics released in November 1993. It cost $4.95, far above a standard comic, and the first printing came wrapped in a clear acetate outer cover. A later second printing, sold at $2.95, dropped the acetate, which is the simplest way to tell the two apart.

Marvel's own solicitation pitched the series as a look at modern-day legends from a new perspective, and a retailer description calls it steeped in unprecedented realism. Book one covers the World War II era of Marvel and the introduction of the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner.

Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross

Alex Ross was born in Portland, Oregon, on January 22, 1970, and grew up in Lubbock, Texas. His mother, Lynette, was a commercial artist. By 16 he had discovered realist illustrators such as Andrew Loomis and Norman Rockwell and wanted to apply their approach to comics. At 17 he enrolled at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, where his mother had studied, and his first published work was the 1990 miniseries Terminator: The Burning Earth, on which he did everything from pencils to color.

Ross typically works in gouache and wash, and on Marvels he is credited as penciler, inker, colorist and cover artist. Kurt Busiek, born in Boston on September 16, 1960, wrote the series. One account of his career says the series reinvigorated painted comics as a genre and spawned more than its share of imitators.

Both men built careers on it. Busiek launched Astro City in 1995, exploring everyday life in a superhero world, with Ross painting its covers and designing characters, and in February 1998 he relaunched The Avengers with George Perez. Ross went on to paint Kingdom Come for DC with the writer Mark Waid in 1996.

A Time of Marvels

The issue opens in 1939. Phil Sheldon is talking about leaving for Europe to cover the war when he attends a science exhibition and sees the unveiling of the Human Torch. Soon the Torch is on the streets of New York, and Phil's fiancee, Doris, tells him she has seen a strange man confront the police, seemingly impervious to them: Namor, the Sub-Mariner.

Phil coins the name "Marvels" for these beings. In late 1940 he and his fellow reporters follow a battle between Namor and the Torch, and fear leads him to postpone his wedding; Doris returns his ring. A year later New York is talking about a super-soldier, Captain America, and Phil and Doris reconcile.

The issue ends with Namor's attack on New York. Phil climbs to a rooftop to cover it as a tidal wave floods the city and the two Marvels fight overhead, and flying debris costs him the sight in his left eye. The art is packed with references: a diner scene echoes Edward Hopper's 1942 painting Nighthawks, and a counterman dismisses Namor as another Orson Welles trick, a nod to the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast.

Which copy is which

This entry is the plain first printing in CGC 9.8, not a signed copy. A signed edition with a certificate of authenticity, signed and numbered by Busiek and Ross and limited to 2,500 copies, was also issued on the first printing. Second printings, without the acetate, exist in both direct and newsstand editions, and a copy listed as a newsstand edition in CGC 9.8 sold online for $200.00 on October 17, 2025.

High-grade copies of the unsigned first printing trade often. Unsigned first-printing CGC 9.8 copies have sold online mostly between about $35 and $150 since 2022: $143.99 in April 2023, $119.00 in January 2026, $87.76 in March 2026 and $99.95 in June 2026. No print run or census figure appears in the sources consulted.

The painted landmark

Marvels won three 1994 Eisner Awards: Best Finite/Limited Series, Best Painter for Ross and Best Publication Design for Comicraft. It was also nominated for Best Cover Artist and Best Single Issue. A Marvels #0, with sketches, text pieces and a 12-page prologue on the Golden Age Human Torch, followed in August 1994, four months after the series ended.

The idea of seeing heroes through ordinary eyes kept returning. Busiek and Roger Stern continued Phil Sheldon's story in Marvels: Eye of the Camera in 2008, and Busiek's Astro City has carried the same approach since 1995. Ross also continued painting covers for Astro City.

The numbers

Cover price

$4.95 (first printing, acetate cover); second printing $2.95

Cover date

January 1994 (released November 1993)

Print run

Not documented in the sources consulted

Census

No dated census count found in the sources consulted

Signed edition

Signed and numbered by Busiek and Ross, limited to 2,500 copies

Series

Four issues, January to April 1994, plus Marvels #0 (August 1994)

Timeline

1. Jan 22, 1970

   Alex Ross is born in Portland, Oregon.

2. 1990

   Ross's first published work, Terminator: The Burning Earth, appears.

3. 1993

   Busiek and Ross begin work on Marvels.

4. Nov 1993

   Marvels #1, cover-dated January 1994, is released at $4.95 with an acetate outer cover.

5. Apr 1994

   Marvels #4 concludes the four-issue series.

6. 1994

   Marvels wins three Eisner Awards, including Best Finite/Limited Series and Best Painter.

7. Aug 1994

   Marvels #0 is published with a 12-page Human Torch prologue.

8. 1995

   Busiek launches Astro City, with covers by Ross.

9. 1996

   Ross paints Kingdom Come for DC.

10. 2008

    Marvels: Eye of the Camera continues Phil Sheldon's story.

11. Apr 19, 2023

    An unsigned CGC 9.8 copy sells online for $143.99.

12. Jun 2, 2026

    An unsigned CGC 9.8 copy sells online for $99.95.

The world in 1994

• Jan 1, 1994

  The North American Free Trade Agreement takes effect.

• Jan 6, 1994

  Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked in Detroit.

• Jan 17, 1994

  The Northridge earthquake strikes the Los Angeles area, killing 57 people.

• Mar 21, 1994

  Schindler's List wins seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

• Apr 19, 1994

  Nas releases his debut album, Illmatic.

• Apr 22, 1994

  Former president Richard Nixon dies in New York at 81.

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, Marvels #1 is number 95 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 (100 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Alex Ross was 23 when Marvels #1 came out.
• The first printing's clear plastic outer cover is the quickest way to tell it from the second printing.
• Phil Sheldon loses the sight in his left eye in the first issue, during a battle between Namor and the Human Torch.
• A diner scene in the issue is an homage to Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks.
• A character dismisses Namor as an Orson Welles trick, a joke about the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast.
• Ross's mother was a commercial artist who studied at the same Chicago art school he later attended.