X-Men #1

Born with it

By 1963 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had launched the Fantastic Four in November 1961 and had since added the Hulk and Thor. For his next team Lee wanted a shortcut. He had grown weary of creating separate origins for each superhero, so he made characters born with latent powers: mutants.

Lee's working title was The Mutants. Marvel publisher Martin Goodman rejected it, believing readers would not know the word. Inside the first issue Professor Xavier explains the replacement: his students "possess an extra power ... one which ordinary humans do not!! That is why I call my students ... X-Men, for EX-tra power!"

The X-Men #1 went on sale July 2, 1963, the publication date recorded in U.S. Copyright Office filings, with a September 1963 cover date. That is the same cover date as The Avengers #1. It cost 12 cents for 36 pages, carried the Comics Code seal, was printed by the Eastern Color Printing Co. of Waterbury, Connecticut, and was scheduled bimonthly.

Lee, Kirby and the first five

Stan Lee, born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922, wrote and edited the issue. Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917 and known to fans as "The King," penciled it. Paul Reinman is credited with inking the 23-page story and Sam Rosen with lettering. The cover inks are less certain: one indexer credited Reinman, but comparison of the slicker cover inking points to Sol Brodsky.

The story opens "in the main study of an exclusive private school in New York's Westchester County," where Professor X has gathered Cyclops, the Beast, the Angel and Iceman. Jean Grey arrives as a new student and joins the team as Marvel Girl.

Their first opponent is Magneto, who brings down missiles and seizes a U.S. military base called Cape Citadel. Lee later said he "did not think of Magneto as a bad guy. He just wanted to strike back at the people who were so bigoted and racist." Magneto's backstory as a Holocaust survivor came much later, from writer Chris Claremont in Uncanny X-Men #150 in August 1981.

Summer 1963

The book reached newsstands in a summer of national argument over civil rights. On June 11, Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama and President Kennedy promised civil rights legislation in an address to the nation. The next day Medgar Evers was assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi.

On August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, before a crowd of at least 250,000. On September 15, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham killed four children.

Abroad, Kennedy spoke in West Berlin on June 26, and the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a nuclear test ban treaty on August 5. Into that summer came a comic about young people feared for what they were born as, and a villain who brings down missiles.

From reprints to records

The X-Men did not sell like Marvel's other hits. Sales fell enough that Marvel stopped running new stories after issue #66 in March 1970 and filled the title with reprints through #93. The revival came with Giant-Size X-Men #1 in May 1975, when writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum introduced a new international team, followed by Chris Claremont's long run.

Prices for high-grade first issues climbed with the franchise. A CGC 9.6 copy that surfaced in 2009 from an original owner's collection in the St. Louis area sold privately for $200,000 in 2011 (sources give March or April), then for $250,000 in 2013. On July 26 or 28, 2012 (sources differ), the Pacific Coast pedigree copy graded CGC 9.8, one of only two at that grade, sold at auction for $492,937.50. It was then the second-highest price for any Silver Age comic.

In June 2021 the St. Louis CGC 9.6 sold again, at auction in New York, for $807,300, then the highest price ever paid for the issue. In the same sale a CGC 8.5 brought $114,000, then a record for that grade.

The 9.0 and the census

A CGC 9.0, Very Fine/Near Mint, sits near the top of a large field. In October 2010, the census held 15 copies at 9.0 and 24 graded higher. By April 12, 2019, CGC had graded 4,537 copies of the issue, 66 of them the British price variant. The median grade was 4.0, Very Good, and only two copies had reached 9.8.

The top of the census has barely moved. In 2013 there were two 9.8s, the Pacific Coast copy and one from the Curator collection, and two 9.6s. By June 2021 the count stood at four 9.6s and still two 9.8s. No verified print run for the issue turned up in the sources used for this page.

One panel inside has an afterlife in fine art: the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein used it as the source for his painting Image Duplicator.

The numbers

Cover price

12 cents

Pages

36; the X-Men story runs 23

Print run

No verified figure found

Census, October 2010

15 at CGC 9.0, 24 higher

Census, April 12, 2019

4,537 graded (66 British variant); median 4.0; two at 9.8

Census, June 2021

Four at 9.6, two at 9.8, none higher

Timeline

1. Nov 1961

   Lee and Kirby launch the Fantastic Four.

2. Jul 2, 1963

   The X-Men #1 goes on sale, cover-dated September 1963.

3. Mar 1970

   Issue #66 is the last with a new story; reprints follow through #93.

4. May 1975

   Giant-Size X-Men #1 relaunches the team with a new lineup.

5. Aug 1981

   Uncanny X-Men #150 reveals Magneto as a Holocaust survivor.

6. 2009

   A high-grade copy surfaces from an original owner's collection near St. Louis; it later grades CGC 9.6.

7. Oct 2010

   The census shows 15 copies at CGC 9.0 and 24 higher.

8. Nov 18, 2010

   A CGC 9.0 copy sells at auction.

9. 2011

   The St. Louis CGC 9.6 sells privately for $200,000.

10. Jul 2012

    The Pacific Coast CGC 9.8 sells at auction for $492,937.50.

11. Jul 2013

    The St. Louis CGC 9.6 sells for $250,000.

12. Nov 12, 2018

    Stan Lee dies at 95.

13. Apr 12, 2019

    The census reaches 4,537 copies graded, median 4.0.

14. Jun 2021

    The St. Louis CGC 9.6 sells at auction for $807,300, a record for the issue.

The world in 1963

• Jun 11, 1963

  Governor Wallace's stand at the University of Alabama; President Kennedy's civil rights address.

• Jun 12, 1963

  Medgar Evers is assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi.

• Jun 26, 1963

  Kennedy declares "Ich bin ein Berliner" in West Berlin.

• Jul 1, 1963

  ZIP codes are introduced in the United States.

• Aug 5, 1963

  The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.

• Aug 28, 1963

  Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" at the March on Washington.

• Sep 15, 1963

  The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham kills four children.

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, X-Men #1 is number 36 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 (6 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Stan Lee wanted to call the book The Mutants; his publisher thought readers would not understand the word.
• Professor X says the name means "EX-tra power."
• It shares a September 1963 cover date with The Avengers #1.
• From 1970 to 1975 the title ran only reprints.
• A panel from the issue was the source for Roy Lichtenstein's painting Image Duplicator.
• Magneto was not written as a Holocaust survivor until 1981, 18 years after his debut.