A new record price has been set for a comic book and it blew away all previous prices - $15 million! The comic was Action Comics #1, published in 1938. What makes it so valuable is that it introduced Superman to the world. Superman was the first superhero, and “he” spawned countless other superheroes, with more being added regularly to this day. Three imitators have also crossed the million dollar threshold, Batman, Spider Man and Captain America, but no one else comes close to the man of steel.
What makes this remarkable price even more so is the margin by which it beat the previous high price. That was achieved less than two months earlier when a copy of Superman #1 sold for $9.12 million at Heritage Auctions. This latest sale was almost 65% more than the previous high. Adding to the phenomenal rise in prices is that last November's $9.12 million price was 52% more than the previous record price of $6 million, set in 2024. In less than two months, the record price paid for a comic book increased by 150%. The explosion in prices is hard to fathom but obviously it makes sense to the very well-heeled buyers.
The common element of all these comic books is Superman. Action Comics #1, which sold for $15 million, introduced Superman, but it was not a Superman comic book. Superman received only a few pages, with other, forgotten characters occupying the rest of the book. Notably, these pages presented the origin of Superman story. After the popularity of the new Superman character in Action #1, he was given his own dedicated comic, Superman #1, which sold for $9.12 million in November.
The seller of the new record-holder was ComiConnect. Here we need to point out that other prices we have noted come from auctions, which take place in public. ComiConnect makes private sales so price verification comes from the seller's word. However, ComiConnect is the largest seller of old and rare comic books, in business since 2005, and its parent, Metropolis Collectibles, has been around since 1985, and its word on prices has been accepted by sources such as the New York Times and BBC. I'll accept their word on the price.
This copy comes with an interesting provenance. According to ComiConnect, it was the most expensive comic ever sold when they purchased it at Sotheby's in 1992 for $82,000. In 1996, they sold it to actor Nicolas Cage for $150,000. At the time, he had a large comic book collection. It is one of only two copies of Action Comics #1 with a grade of 9.0, the highest of any verified copy. In January 2000, the comic was stolen from Cage's home. It may have happened at a party he threw, though the exact timing of the theft is unknown, making it more difficult to name the thief. Neither Cage nor the police were able to locate the comic or identify who stole it. Fortunately, it was discovered in an abandoned storage locker in 2012. It was returned to Cage. No longer a comic book collector, ComiConnect sold it for him six months later for $2.2 million. ComiConnect CEO Stephen Fishler noted the theft wasn't such a bad thing for Cage as the value skyrocketed during the time it was missing.
The 2012 buyer, the 2026 seller, and the 2026 buyer have all chosen to remain anonymous. The 2012 buyer and 2026 seller would logically be the same though this is not certain. There are only two 9.0 graded copies of Action Comics #1 and Mark Seifert of the Bleeding Cool website said that he saw both of them at an exhibition in London in 2016 by the Impossible Collection. This is or was a massive collection of around 1,000 comic books of high value. Fishler and ComiConnect President Vincent Zurzolo helped to build this collection. Its owner is 47-year-old Ayman Hariri, a billionaire from Lebanon. His father, Rafic Hariri, founded a construction company in Saudi Arabia, became a billionaire, and served two terms as Prime Minister of Lebanon, before being assassinated in 2005 by members of Hezbollah. It seems likely that Ayman Hariri was the 2012 buyer and the recent (2026) seller.
ComiConnct describes this as “the highest price ever paid for a collectible.” That depends on your definition of a “collectible,” but where they are clearly correct is in pointing out that this is the first time a comic book has sold for more than any baseball card. Until now, the most expensive baseball card has always been higher than the most expensive comic book, but the $15 million Action Comics #1 surpassed the price of the most expensive baseball card ever, the Mickey Mantle rookie card that sold for $12.6 million.
This comic book originally sold in 1938 for 10¢. This is an increase of 15 billion percent. The original owner should have kept it.
