Iron Man #55 Value: The First Thanos, Priced Grade by Grade

Thanos turns up two thirds of the way into a 1973 Iron Man comic that nobody thought about for thirty years, alongside Drax the Destroyer, in an issue that sat in dollar boxes for most of that time. A CGC 9.8 peaked at $19,200 in 2022 and has settled near $6,600 since; a readable copy is a few hundred dollars, and that second number is the one most owners of this book need.

The issue is dated February 1973 and cost twenty cents, and there is only one printing of it to worry about.

Why the first Thanos hid in an Iron Man comic

Jim Starlin was drawing and co-plotting Iron Man over Mike Friedrich’s script when he introduced two characters he had been developing for himself. Neither belonged to the title and neither stayed in it long.

That is the whole reason the book was cheap for decades. Collectors chase first appearances inside the titles they belong to, and nobody was hunting Thanos keys in a 1973 Iron Man run. The character spent thirty years as a cult figure before the films made him the most recognizable villain Marvel owns.

The practical consequence is a supply that was never protected. Copies of this issue were read, traded and stored like any other seventies Iron Man, which is why sharp ones are genuinely scarce and rough ones are everywhere.

Starlin took the character with him when he left the title, so the issues he drew afterward tend to surface in the same box as this one. If a seventies Marvel run came out of the same closet, it is worth listing the Starlin issues together rather than one at a time.

To identify it: 20 cents, February 1973, with Iron Man against two huge orange brutes and a green-and-yellow figure behind them, blurbed Beware the Blood Brothers. Marvel reprinted the story in a 1992 Milestone edition that says so inside, and the 1998 relaunch of the title has its own issue 55, cover dated 2002, which is a different comic entirely.

A top grade that keeps landing in the same place

No sale of this comic appears in CGC’s auction reporting, so no price below carries a link. Every row is a Heritage Auctions result or a completed eBay listing.

Eighteen documented 9.8 sales, and the shape is a spike and a long return: $6,900 in 2019, $19,200 at the peak in June 2022, then $6,600 twice and $6,779 in January. A lane that keeps returning to the same number is one you can quote with confidence, as long as it is the recent number you quote.

The 9.6 has twenty-seven sales and ran $2,988 to $4,000 across this summer. Worth knowing before anybody treats a single 9.6 result as a fixed figure.

The 9.4 and 9.2 lanes have overlapped all year: $1,600 to $2,400 at 9.4, $1,600 to $1,750 at 9.2. When two adjacent grades trade in the same range the market has stopped paying for the distinction, and a submission chasing the higher one is a poor bet.

Everything above 9.2 is where this book concentrates its money, and everything below it is a different and much calmer market.

Those figures are Heritage results and completed eBay sales. GoCollect and PriceCharting track Iron Man #55 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Iron Man #55 value in every grade

371 sales tracked back to 2019; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Heritage rows are verifiable in Heritage’s public Iron Man issue index; the rest are completed eBay listings. The record runs back to 2019 and the 9.2 lane alone carries thirty of the sales.

The readable copies, which is most of them

This is a seventies Marvel that people read, so the middle of the ladder is where most surviving copies actually land.

Across 2026: 9.0 copies brought $844 to $1,380, 8.5 copies $645 to $1,370, 8.0 copies $597 to $955, and 7.5 copies $525 to $799.

Further down it holds up well. The 7.0 lane ran $501 to $700 in the same months, which for a comic that was worth almost nothing twenty years ago is a striking floor.

Raw copies are the widest band on the page: August results at $285, $378, $564 and $900. That $900 is a raw copy somebody believed in, and it is more than several graded 8.0 sales from the same weeks.

So a readable copy of the first Thanos is a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand. Graded 7.0 copies ran $492 to $740 this year, 6.0 copies $427 to $650, and even a 3.5 brought $350. That band, not the figure at the top of the table, is what most owners are actually holding.

Selling it while the character is between films

The question I am asked most on this book is whether to wait, and the record answers it better than a guess would.

The 9.8 lane peaked at $19,200 in June 2022, was down to $9,000 by December 2024 and has settled near $6,600 since. That is roughly a third of the peak, then a flat line. The middle grades never took that ride at all.

That split is worth understanding. Top-grade prices on film-driven books move with announcements, because the buyers up there are treating the comic partly as an asset. Readable copies are bought by people who want the comic, and that demand does not switch off between films.

If you hold a rough or readable copy, none of the volatility above applies to you and there is no timing question worth agonizing over. If you hold a 9.8, you are holding the one part of this book that has moved, and the honest position is that it has moved down and then stopped.

One identification note before any of that. The 1992 Milestone reprint carries this cover and turns up constantly in collections assembled in the nineties. It says Milestone on the cover and names itself in the indicia, and it is worth a few dollars.

Selling an Iron Man #55

1. Twenty cents, February 1973. The Milestone reprint and the 2002 issue 55 are different comics.
2. Readable copies are a few hundred dollars. Graded 6.0 to 7.0 ran $427 to $740 this year.
3. 9.4 and 9.2 now overlap. Do not pay a submission fee chasing the distinction.
4. Look for the rest of the Starlin run. It travels with this book and is worth listing together.

Photographs are enough for me to tell you which lane your copy sits in. On this book the recent record is settled rather than moving, so the number I give you should still be good next month.

Send photographs and I will place your copy in its grade lane against the same recent sales you can read above. Where you take it next is your call, and the options for selling in Southern California are worth knowing either way.

Related

• Incredible Hulk #181. The other seventies Marvel first appearance collectors chase hardest.
• How grading actually works. Useful where two adjacent grades trade in the same range.
• The 100 most valuable Bronze Age comics. Where this issue ranks against the era.

Cover images on this page are shown small, for identification, with the publisher credited in the caption. If you are a rights holder and want an image removed, contact me and it comes down.