The comic book in which Superman made his first appearance, with a history of being stolen and recovered much like the Mona Lisa painting, was sold for over 471 million baht, breaking a world record.
Foreign news agencies reported on 10 Jan 2026 GMT+7 that a rare 1938 comic book introducing the world to "Superman" was sold to an anonymous collector for as much as 15 million U.S. dollars, approximately 471 million baht, setting a record for the most expensive comic book ever sold.
The sale of this Action Comics No. 1 was revealed last Friday (9 Jan), and the comic had previously been stolen from the home of famous actor Nicolas Cage before he recovered it more than a decade later.
The previous record for the highest comic book sale was set just last November, when a pristine copy of Superman No. 1 sold at auction for 9.12 million dollars. Both sales vastly exceed the original cover price of just 10 cents (equivalent to about 2.25 U.S. dollars today).
Superman’s first appearance is among several stories in Action Comics No. 1, widely regarded as the defining origin of the “superhero” as we know it today. It is believed that fewer than 100 copies of this comic remain worldwide.
The sale last Friday was conducted through representatives at Metropolis Collectibles/ComicConnect in New York, who stated that both the original owner and the new buyer wished to remain anonymous.
Representatives noted that the comic was graded 9 out of 10 by the Certified Guaranty Company, experts in collectible authentication, making it the highest graded copy ever recorded.
Additionally, the comic’s value surged due to its history linked to Hollywood superstar Nicolas Cage, known for films like Con Air and National Treasure, who purchased the comic in 1996 for 150,000 U.S. dollars—a world record at the time.
However, the comic was stolen during a party at Cage’s home in 2000 and was only recovered in 2011 inside a storage locker in California.
“Over those 11 years, its value skyrocketed, effectively meaning the thief made Nicolas Cage a fortune by stealing it,” said Stephen Fishler, CEO of Metropolis Collectibles/ComicConnect.
Six months after Cage recovered the comic, he auctioned it off for 2.2 million U.S. dollars (about 69 million baht at current exchange rates).
This case is reminiscent of the theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, which transformed the previously less-known painting into the most famous artwork in the world.
“The Mona Lisa’s recovery turned it from just a good da Vinci painting into a global icon, and that’s what Action Comics No. 1 represents—it is a symbol of American pop culture,” Fishler said.
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Source:bbc