*DC: As rare as hen’s teeth! In 30+ years of flogging comics, we’ve never had a copy of #1 of the first series of Phantom Stranger through our hands before. In 1952, he appeared from nowhere, without explanation or origin to be DC’s mysterious omniscient and omnipotent being of mystery. Despite numerous theories in the DCU, no concrete information has ever been revealed about his true nature. Edited by Whitney Ellsworth, and created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, the debut issue had the finest creators of the time working on it in a number of horror/supernatural stories. Whilst perhaps not as Pre-Code horrifically as the fare of other less polished publishers, the Phantom Stranger made up for that in the quality of substance and style of his stories. Make no mistake, this is a low grade copy that has suffered much restoration. There are amateurish colour touches along most of the spine and along all the front cover edges. A 3 cm x 2 cm chip is missing from the central right cover edge, which has been patched, colour touched and secured by tape; a corresponding but smaller chip is out of the splash page (virtually margin only) with smaller tears to later page edges in the same place. There are two further pieces of tape along the inside front cover bottom edge. The cover right edge had spidery colour-breaking creases and there is a small faint mark, possibly a ‘6’, over the logo. Tiny spnie split at top, very small chip out of spine at central back cover. Staples are tight at centrefold and secure at spine, with top staple a little loose. Page quality, except as noted, is a pleasing off-white. So, a rough-ish copy, to which we have awarded an Apparent grade, but when will you see another? High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: PHANTOM STRANGER #1 App FA £540 SOLD