In January 2026 a copy of Action Comics No. 1 (1938) sold for $15 million — the highest price ever paid for a comic book. The private deal, brokered by Metropolis Collectibles and ComicConnect in New York, topped the previous record of $9.12 million for a copy of Superman No. 1 and put the issue that first introduced Superman back at the top of the collector market.
Buyer and seller remained anonymous. The provenance, however, is well known: this is the same CGC 9.0 copy that in the 1990s belonged to actor Nicolas Cage, was stolen from his home, and only resurfaced eleven years later.
Why this particular comic?
Action Comics No. 1, cover-dated June 1938 (on sale April 18, 1938), is Superman’s first regular appearance — and thus the birth of the superhero genre. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created not just a character but a whole storytelling model: the alien hero in everyday life, the secret identity, the fight for justice. For the historical context, see our history of the first issue.
Of the original print run, only an estimated 50 to 100 copies are known worldwide. The CGC Population Report lists fewer than 100 graded copies; at the very top the air is extremely thin. Only two copies carry a CGC 9.0 grade — Near Mint, an extreme rarity for an 88-year-old newsstand comic.
The Hollywood story of the record copy
This one book has a biography of its own, which further shapes its market value. In 1992 it sold at Sotheby’s for about $82,000 and was then the most expensive comic in the world. In 1996 Metropolis sold it to Nicolas Cage for $150,000 — another record.
In January 2000 the copy vanished during a party at Cage’s Los Angeles home. For eleven years it remained missing, until 2011, when it turned up in the contents of a California storage unit, was recovered by law enforcement and returned to Cage. Only six months later he consigned it to ComicConnect: the result of $2.16 million was the first time a comic book crossed the two-million-dollar mark.
Vincent Zurzolo, president of Metropolis Collectibles, has compared the theft and recovery to the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa: only the spectacular story turned a masterpiece into a global symbol. The same applies here — rarity, condition and provenance reinforce one another.
“Action Comics #1 is the foundation of the entire comic book industry as we know it. This sale reflects not just the rarity of the book, but its unmatched historical importance.”
From a six-million to a fifteen-million market
The climb was steep. In 2014 the other known CGC 9.0 copy realized $3.2 million. In 2024 a CGC 8.5 copy set the then auction record for Action Comics No. 1 at $6 million. In November 2025 a newly discovered Superman No. 1 (also CGC 9.0) briefly overtook every comic record at $9.12 million — until the January 2026 deal put Action Comics No. 1 back on top, not only among comics but among pop-culture collectibles as a whole.
For price ranges by grade, see our overview What is Action Comics No. 1 worth?.
What the record means for collectors
For the vast majority of Superman fans, an original in this condition remains out of reach. That is exactly why a market for high-quality reprints has taken hold: they make the reading and collecting experience of the debut issue accessible without seven-figure sums. The difference is explained in Original vs. reprint; a way into the book itself is our Action Comics No. 1 reprint.
The record does not change why the issue matters: not because of the sum, but because in 1938 a hero from the planet Krypton first arrived on Earth. The later development of the series — from Lex Luthor through Brainiac to Supergirl — began with this one ten-cent comic. A full overview of the milestones is in our issues guide.