The Man of Steel #1

Starting Superman over

Between April 1985 and March 1986 DC Comics published Crisis on Infinite Earths, a 12-issue event by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez. Wolfman believed DC's multiverse of parallel Earths was not friendly to new readers, and the series collapsed it into a single continuity in time for the company's 50th anniversary, killing off Supergirl and the Silver Age Flash along the way.

That left DC free to rebuild its biggest characters from scratch, and the first to get a full reboot was Superman. The job went to John Byrne, who reintroduced the character in The Man of Steel, a six-issue limited series released twice a month from July to September 1986.

Issue #1 retells the origin: the infant leaves the doomed planet Krypton, Jonathan and Martha Kent find him in Kansas, a teenage Clark uses his growing powers to win a football game, and after Jonathan tells him where he came from, Clark spends years saving lives in secret. His public debut comes when he stops an experimental space plane from crashing in Metropolis, where he meets Lois Lane.

John Byrne crosses over

John Byrne was born on July 6, 1950, in Walsall, England, and his family moved to Canada when he was eight. At Marvel he joined writer Chris Claremont on X-Men with issue #108 in December 1977 and stayed through #143 in March 1981, co-creating Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost and drawing the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past.

He then wrote and drew Fantastic Four from #232 to #295, July 1981 to October 1986, a run often called a second golden age for the title. His Fantastic Four was still on the stands when The Man of Steel launched at DC.

Byrne wrote and drew the monthly Superman titles in 1987 and 1988 before leaving over what he saw as a lack of company support. He later returned to Marvel and, in 1992, launched his creator-owned series Next Men.

What Byrne changed

Byrne's Superman was the sole survivor of Krypton, which removed Supergirl and Krypto from the story, and he never served as Superboy. Jonathan and Martha Kent remained alive into Clark's adulthood. Krypton itself became a cold, emotionally sterile world.

Lex Luthor changed most of all, from a mad scientist into a corporate businessman and white-collar criminal.

The relaunch worked commercially. The first issue sold 200,000 copies and was the best-selling comic of 1986. The post-Crisis revamp lifted DC's sales by 22 percent in its first year, and in August and September 1987 DC passed Marvel in direct-market sales for the first time.

The first variant cover

Man of Steel #1 exists in several forms. CGC lists a newsstand edition, a Canadian edition and a Collector's Edition with an alternate cover, and calls the Collector's Edition the very first variant cover ever published. Copies are often sold with the Collector's Edition described as having a silver logo.

This entry is the regular edition in CGC 9.8. As of December 20, 2022, CGC reported 790 copies of Man of Steel #1 on its census, with 334 at 9.8 and a single 9.9, which is a Collector's Edition. When buying, check the cover against the label, since both the regular and Collector's Edition versions appear in 9.8.

CGC also noted that a CGC 9.8 Collector's Edition sold online for $200 in April 2022. In 2026, 9.8 copies of the regular edition changed hands online mostly between about $90 and $140.

Legacy

The Man of Steel was followed in October 1986 by ongoing monthly titles, including a new Superman series starting over at #1 and Action Comics continuing with #584. Byrne's reboot defined the character's history for the post-Crisis era.

For collectors, the book sits at a crossroads: a defining Superman origin, a bridge between Byrne's Marvel and DC careers, and the comic credited with the first variant cover.

The numbers

Copies sold

200,000

Series

Six issues, twice monthly, July to September 1986

Census total, December 20, 2022

790 copies

CGC 9.8, December 20, 2022

334

CGC 9.9, December 20, 2022

One, a Collector's Edition

Editions

Regular, newsstand, Canadian, Collector's Edition

Timeline

1. Jul 6, 1950

   John Byrne is born in Walsall, England.

2. Dec 1977

   Byrne begins drawing X-Men with issue #108.

3. Jul 1981

   Byrne starts his run on Fantastic Four with #232.

4. Apr 1985

   Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 begins DC's continuity reset.

5. Mar 1986

   Crisis on Infinite Earths ends with issue #12.

6. Jul 1986

   The Man of Steel #1 launches the six-issue, twice-monthly series.

7. Sep 1986

   The Man of Steel concludes with issue #6.

8. Oct 1986

   Superman vol. 2 #1 and Action Comics #584 continue the new continuity; Byrne's Fantastic Four run ends with #295.

9. Aug 1987

   DC passes Marvel in direct-market sales for the first time, in August and September 1987.

10. 1988

    Byrne leaves the Superman titles.

11. Apr 2022

    A CGC 9.8 Collector's Edition sells online for $200.

12. Dec 20, 2022

    CGC's census shows 790 copies of #1, with 334 at 9.8 and one at 9.9.

The world in 1986

• Apr 26, 1986

  The Chernobyl nuclear accident occurs in Soviet Ukraine.

• Jun 29, 1986

  Argentina beats West Germany 3 to 2 to win the World Cup in Mexico.

• Jul 5, 1986

  The Statue of Liberty reopens after restoration.

• Jul 23, 1986

  Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.

• Aug 21, 1986

  A gas eruption at Lake Nyos in Cameroon kills nearly 2,000 people.

• Sep 7, 1986

  Desmond Tutu becomes the first Black Anglican Church bishop in South Africa.

• Oct 9, 1986

  Fox launches as the fourth commercial broadcast television network in the United States.

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, The Man of Steel #1 is number 94 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 (78 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• CGC calls the Man of Steel #1 Collector's Edition the very first variant cover ever published.
• Byrne was still writing and drawing Fantastic Four for Marvel when The Man of Steel came out.
• In Byrne's version, Clark Kent never became Superboy.
• The series came out twice a month, so all six issues appeared in about three months.
• The only CGC 9.9 on the December 2022 census was a Collector's Edition, not a regular copy.