More Fun Comics #52

The comic that started DC

More Fun Comics began as New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine, published by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications on January 11, 1935, with a February 1935 cover date. It was a tabloid-size, 36-page magazine, and it was the first American comic book made entirely of new material rather than reprinted newspaper strips. It was also the first publication of the company that became DC Comics.

The title became More Fun with issues #7 and #8 in early 1936 and More Fun Comics from #9 on. Issue #6, in October 1935, carried the first comic book work of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, three years before they launched Superman. They stayed on the supernatural feature Doctor Occult through #32 in June 1938.

By late 1939 Superman was a sensation in Action Comics, and Batman had arrived in Detective Comics. More Fun was still an anthology of pirates, pilots, cowboys and detectives. Issue #52 changed that. Cover-dated February 1940, it went on sale December 28, 1939, the publication date reported in its copyright filing, and its cover belonged to a new character with gray skin and a blue cloak looming over a group of gangsters.

Murdered on page one

The Spectre's 10-page debut opens with Jim Corrigan, a hard-boiled detective, on his way with his fiancee Clarice to their engagement party. Corrigan has inside information on a job planned by the gangster Gat Benson. Benson's men capture him, stuff him into a barrel filled with cement and throw it into the water.

Corrigan's soul is about to enter heaven when a presence known only as the Voice tells him his fight against crime is not over and sends him back with supernatural powers. The newly made Spectre goes after his murderers in grim fashion: his touch alone reduces one of them to a skeleton. He then takes up Corrigan's old life and job and breaks off the engagement with Clarice.

Even by the standards of comics published before any content code, the story was violent. A modern catalog description calls it one of the darkest of all Golden Age origins, and notes the irony of finding it inside a title called More Fun. Sources differ on how long the origin runs: one comics index says the story concludes in the next issue, while auction descriptions say it spans three issues.

The rest of the book is a typical late-1939 anthology. Siegel also wrote the Radio Squad police feature in the same issue. The issue carries the last Wing Brady story, a Biff Bronson adventure in which robots steal the silver stored at West Point, and a blurb reminding readers that Superman 'appears ONLY in ACTION COMICS!'

Siegel and Baily

Jerry Siegel had created Superman with Joe Shuster, and the two had been working in this same title since 1935. The Spectre was a different kind of hero: a man who is already dead, who answers to a higher power, and who punishes criminals in increasingly ironic ways.

Bernard Baily drew it. He was born Bernard Bailynson on April 5, 1916, the oldest of four children of immigrant parents from Vitebsk, and he started in comics under Jerry Iger before moving to the Eisner and Iger studio. For National he co-created Tex Thomson in Action Comics #1 in June 1938 and wrote and drew the pirate feature Buccaneer in More Fun #32 through #51, the issues right before the Spectre arrived.

One survey of the top hundred American comics artists said Baily 'crafted a mood of menace and suspense, using bravura layouts featuring the Spectre's otherworldly powers and size.' Some sources credit Siegel alone with creating the Spectre and treat Baily as the assigned artist; others credit both. Baily also co-created Hourman in Adventure Comics #48 in April 1940. He died January 19, 1996.

From the first super-team to the wrath of God

Within a year the Spectre was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, the first superhero team, which held its first meeting in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940-41). Corrigan was brought back to life in More Fun #75 (January 1942), so that the Spectre became a separate being who could emerge from his body. As superhero sales faded in the mid-1940s, the Spectre was reduced to guardian angel for a comic sidekick, Percival Popp, and his feature ended with More Fun #101 in February 1945.

Editor Julius Schwartz revived him in Showcase #60 (February 1966), with Gardner Fox writing and Murphy Anderson drawing a Spectre whose powers at times approached omnipotence. In 1974 writer Michael Fleisher and artist Jim Aparo began a run in Adventure Comics #431 that became controversial for its gruesome, if bloodless, punishments.

Later writers recast the Spectre as the embodiment of God's wrath, a fallen angel named Aztar bound to a human host. Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Gotham detective Crispus Allen each served as the host in the 2000s, and the character has appeared on television in Constantine and Arrow.

Because the character's popularity grew again in the 1990s, many copies of More Fun #52 were restored, which makes high-grade unrestored copies especially scarce.

Sales and survivors

No print run figure for More Fun #52 is documented. The book is rare: one long-running reference rates it an 8, 'rare,' on its scarcity scale. In early 2022 the CGC census recorded 47 copies, only 20 of them in the unrestored Universal grade. One cataloger wrote that most copies they had seen were restored or graded 3.0 or lower.

For years the record was $119,500, paid at auction in 2006 for a CGC 9.2. A CGC 8.0 sold at auction for $37,050 on June 3, 2014. Prices then climbed sharply: on March 17, 2022, a CGC 3.0 brought $95,450, and the seller noted there had been no public sale of the issue at all in 2021.

On December 11, 2022, the CGC 8.5 copy with off-white to white pages sold at auction for $264,000, more than double the 2006 record. Before the sale its cataloger said they had seen only two copies in higher grade in all their years of auctions, and the census then showed one copy at 8.5 and two higher. A CGC 6.5 with white pages sold at auction on January 9, 2025; at that time the census showed two copies at 6.5 and six higher. Its price is not given in the sources used here.

The numbers

Cover price

10 cents

Pages

68

Print run

No verified figure found

Census, early 2022

47 copies, 20 in the Universal grade

Census, December 2022

1 at 8.5, 2 higher

Census, January 2025

2 at 6.5, 6 higher

Timeline

1. Jan 11, 1935

   New Fun #1, the first comic book of all-original material, is published by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.

2. Oct 1935

   Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster make their comic book debut in New Fun #6.

3. 1936

   The title becomes More Fun, then More Fun Comics from issue #9.

4. Jun 1938

   Bernard Baily begins the pirate feature Buccaneer in More Fun #32.

5. Dec 28, 1939

   More Fun Comics #52 goes on sale, cover-dated February 1940, introducing the Spectre.

6. 1940

   The Spectre is a charter member of the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics #3, cover-dated Winter 1940-41.

7. Jan 1942

   Jim Corrigan is restored to life in More Fun #75.

8. Feb 1945

   The Golden Age Spectre feature ends in More Fun #101.

9. Feb 1966

   The Spectre is revived in Showcase #60.

10. Feb 1974

    Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo begin their Spectre run in Adventure Comics #431.

11. Jan 19, 1996

    Bernard Baily dies.

12. 2006

    A CGC 9.2 sells at auction for $119,500, the issue's record for 16 years.

13. Jun 3, 2014

    A CGC 8.0 sells at auction for $37,050.

14. Mar 17, 2022

    A CGC 3.0 sells at auction for $95,450.

15. Dec 11, 2022

    The CGC 8.5 copy sells at auction for a record $264,000.

16. Jan 9, 2025

    A CGC 6.5 copy with white pages sells at auction.

The world in 1939

• Dec 2, 1939

  LaGuardia Airport opens for business in New York City.

• Dec 15, 1939

  Gone with the Wind premieres in Atlanta.

• Dec 29, 1939

  The prototype B-24 Liberator bomber makes its first flight.

• Feb 7, 1940

  Walt Disney's Pinocchio is released.

• Feb 27, 1940

  Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14.

• Feb 29, 1940

  Gone with the Wind wins eight Academy Awards.

• Apr 25, 1940

  The Joker and Catwoman debut in Batman #1.

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, More Fun Comics #52 is number 20 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 (16 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• New Fun #1, this title's first issue, was the first American comic book made entirely of new material.
• The Spectre's first cover shows him with gray skin and a blue cloak; a 2003 archive reprint colored the debut story incorrectly.
• Siegel and Shuster's first comic book work appeared in this same title in 1935, three years before Superman.
• Jerry Siegel wrote two features in More Fun #52: the Spectre and Radio Squad.
• Bernard Baily was 23 when the issue went on sale.
• A CGC 3.0 copy sold for $95,450 in 2022, more than two and a half times what a CGC 8.0 brought in 2014.
• The Spectre's Golden Age feature ended in More Fun #101, the same issue that introduced Superboy.