*DC: One of my all-time favourite comics! While all early issues of Hawkman are superb, with high-flying sci-fi stories by Gardner Fox and luminous Murphy Anderson artwork (not that we’re prejudiced witnesses or anything…), the most sought-after in recent years is issue #4, featuring the debut of the Princess of Prestidigitation – Zatanna! Zee (as she’s familiarly known), a personal favourite here at 30th Century, is the daughter of DC’s Golden Age magician Zatara, and took her quest for her missing father through the pages of Green Lantern, Atom, Detective Comics and the Justice League of America in one of DC’s earliest ‘story arcs’, but this is where her illustrious career – which has branched out into both animated and live-action TV – began. (And yes, they did miss a bet by not having her featured on the cover – foolish mortals!). We’ve had a few copies of this through our hands in the past year or two, but this is by far the loveliest copy, tight and flat with firm staples, great cover colour and gloss, nice just off-white pages and virtually no edge wear. There’s one very faint crease (not colour breaking) below the ‘H’ in the logo and an almost invisible, very shallow crease at an angle up from the lower edge, but you have to look really hard to see it. I’ll let you in on a secret — this copy is even nicer than my personal copy and would be in my collection like a shot (except that my copy was signed by Murphy Anderson when I met him and his wife many years ago and remains one of my most treasured possessions). High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: HAWKMAN #4 FN/VF p £500