*DC: An early Superman gem from the Midas Collection: #9 from 1941. Beneath a dynamic cover by Fred Ray with Superman bursting through it, there’s a beautiful splash page by Paul Cassidy and four Superman stories also illustrated by Cassidy (who ghosted on art for Joe Shuster) of adventure, mystery, crime and subterfuge. Plus loads of feature pages. This copy has seen better days. The cover is totally detached. There is a thumbnail-sized chunk out of the top of the spine, a ragged 4 cm strip off top cover and a small chip out of right edge. Several of the centre wraps are off the staples. The front and back covers look as if they’ve had pencil scribbling over them at some stage in their history, which has subsequently been erased (mostly successfully), but it has left the front cover a little less than fresh. There is also what looks like a graphite stain around the top right edge of the border on the splash page. Other than that the pages are mostly clean and off-white. Although the cover’s a bit of a wreck, internally, it’s a clear and mostly undamaged read. And hey! – it’s Superman #9!
PICTURED: SUPERMAN #9 FA £430