This has been a great year for the red cape and the S. Superman is the highest grossing superhero film of the year, was beloved by critics and fans alike, and already has an anticipated sequel in the works. This love for the Last Son of Krypton may have helped bolster a recent auction for a piece of history. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, a copy of 1939’s Superman #1 in incredibly good condition fetched a staggering $9.1 million. That’s not even the character’s first appearance! Superman famously first appeared in Action Comics #1 from 1938, a copy of which sold only last year for $6 million. DC Comics

Why would a single copy of a particular old comic fetch such a hefty sum, over $3 million more than last year’s record-setting purchase? Well one reason might be the incredible shape the comic is in. It’s nearly 90 years old but the Certified Guaranty Company, the leading third-party grading service for comic books, graded it a 9.0 out of 10. It also might have something to do with where the book came from. Three brothers found it in their mother’s attic in a box of old newspaper clippings.

According to THR, “their mother bought the comic, along with several others, when she was nine and living in Depression-era San Francisco. Over the years, the mother occasionally insisted to her sons that she had ‘rare comics somewhere.’ But she could never remember where, and the boys assumed it was just a family legend. The mother died just before the pandemic, and the house sat untouched until the brothers were ready to go through it earlier this year.”

Stories like that add to the legend of a particular piece of history. I wonder if the same book would have garnered that high a price had it just been in a private collection for 50 years. So make sure you really sort through your relatives’ boxes, people. You never know what treasures you might find.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

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