Tales of Suspense #39

Collector Notes:

Between May and Jul 1960, Atlas comics titles featured strange monsters and weird creatures in a (mostly) science fiction context

Note: see also Spellbound and Terrific for reprints of early Iron Man stories.

Tales of Suspense is one of the most significant Marvel titles of the Silver Age.
The title both introduced Iron Man to public and showcased the bulk of Captain America's earlier Silver Age appearances. For many decades, both Iron Man and Captain America have played a central role for Marvel as both stand-alone superheroes and central members of the Avengers super-hero team. TOS also reintroduced the Red Skull, Caps nemesis going back to the dawn of the Golden Age, and spawned several other popular characters including Hawkeye and the Black Widow.

#39 (Mar 1963) Origin and 1st appearance of Iron Man, part Jack Kirby artwork (layouts only). Exact same contents and cover as the American edition apart from the price and cover date. As with all these early UK editions of Tales of Suspense after Jul 1960 (1st distribution in the UK), the price circle says 9d (ninepence) instead of 12c (twelve cents) and the date box has no month. All these comics were printed at the same time with the same paper stock but switching a different cover plate at the end of the print run. Somewhere between 2 and 3% of the print run were UK variant editions for shipping to the UK and then some onto South Africa and Australasia.

A 9.0 Tales of Suspense #39 sold in Aug 2010 for $27,100!
A 9.0 had previously sold for $11,950 back in 2006.
In Nov 2013 a 9.6 copy sold for a staggering $262,900.

Character(s):

Iron Man (Anthony Stark)

Artist(s):

Jack Kirby

Credit: