Books News

First Superman comic fetches over 2 million dollars

Dec 2, 2011, 14:33 GMT

Los Angeles - A copy of Action Comics Number 1, which featured the first appearance of Superman has sold at an online auction for a record 2,161,000 dollars, according to the Hollywood Reporter Thursday.

Though the identities of the seller and buyer were not officially revealed, the report said that the near-pristine comic book from 1938 was in all likelihood owned by actor Nicholas Cage.

A copy of the rare comic book was stolen from Cage in 2000 and resurfaced in April, when an unidentified man bought the contents of an abandoned storage locker in Southern California.

According to the report, the previous record for a comic book was set in March 2010, when a less well-preserved copy of Action Comics Number 1 sold for 1.5 million dollars.

There are only about 100 copies of the first Superman comic known to survive, with just five of them close to the near-mint condition of the record-breaking copy, the report said. Cage bought the comic in 1997 for about 150,000 dollars and is thought to have been forced to sell due to a series of financial missteps, with many of his homes already in foreclosure.