One half-grade step on this comic separates a four-figure book from a three-figure one, and most copies fall on the wrong side of it. Marvel Super-Heroes 13 value is decided at 9.0.
Carol Danvers appears here for the first time in September 1968, as an Air Force officer rather than a superhero.
First appearance, not first costume
Carol Danvers turns up in this issue as a security chief with no powers and no costume, in a Captain Marvel story. She does not become Ms. Marvel until 1977, and she does not take the Captain Marvel name until 2012.
That means several comics have a claim on the character. This one has the first appearance, Ms. Marvel #1 has the first costume, and later issues have the name change. Buyers who came from the films are usually looking for whichever the seller described most confidently.
The distinction matters because this book is by far the cheapest of them in any readable grade, and it is the one with the strongest claim.
To identify it: 12 cents, September 1968, no bar code. Reprints of this story appear in Captain Marvel collections that name their edition inside.
The step at 9.0
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.
| Grade | Result | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.6 | $3,849 | eBay, February 2025 |
| CGC 9.4 | $3,360 | Heritage Auctions, November 2021 |
| CGC 9.4 | $2,280 | Heritage Auctions, February 2025 |
| CGC 9.4 | $2,220 | Heritage Auctions, February 2025 |
| CGC 9.2 | $2,500 | eBay, August 2022 |
| CGC 9.0 | $2,300 | eBay, April 2022 |
| CGC 9.2 | $1,450 | eBay, August 2025 |
| CGC 9.2 | $1,380 | Heritage Auctions, July 2025 |
| CGC 9.0 | $1,260 | eBay, September 2024 |
| CGC 9.2 | $976 | eBay, December 2025 |
| CGC 8.5 | $450 | eBay, April 2026 |
Put the 9.0 and the 8.5 side by side. The 9.0 brought $2,300 in April 2022, $988 in January 2023, $1,260 in September 2024. The 8.5 has brought $312, $360, $350, $319, $378 and $450 across 2025 and 2026. There is nothing in between.
That is a step of roughly three to one for half a grade, and it is the single most consequential fact about this comic. It is also unusually clean: thirteen 8.5 sales all landing between $312 and $450 is a very firm number.
Above the step the 9.2 has been falling: $2,500 in August 2022, $1,800 in February 2023, $1,380 in July 2025, $976 that December. Down sixty percent over three years.
The 9.4 held better, at $3,360 in November 2021 and then $2,220 and $2,280 in the same month of February 2025. Two sales at essentially the same figure is worth more than either one alone.
So the shape is a soft top, a hard step at 9.0, and a very flat and very cheap everything else. If you are deciding whether to grade, this book answers the question for you more clearly than most.
As with everything on this site, those figures come through CGC’s reporting of other companies’ auctions and Heritage’s own published results. GoCollect and PriceCharting track Marvel Super-Heroes #13 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.
Marvel Super-Heroes #13 value, grade by grade
230 sales tracked back to 2003; here are the three freshest in every grade.
| Grade | Sold for | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| CGC 9.8 | $1,079 | Heritage Auctions, August 17, 2011 |
| CGC 9.6 | $3,849 | eBay, February 1, 2025 |
| CGC 9.6 | $414 | Heritage Auctions, August 13, 2003 |
| CGC 9.4 | $3,000 | eBay, August 16, 2025 |
| CGC 9.4 | $2,220 | Heritage Auctions, February 11, 2025 |
| CGC 9.4 | $2,280 | Heritage Auctions, February 11, 2025 |
| CGC 9.2 | $976 | eBay, December 3, 2025 |
| CGC 9.2 | $1,450 | eBay, August 12, 2025 |
| CGC 9.2 | $1,380 | Heritage Auctions, July 25, 2025 |
| CGC 9.0 | $355 | eBay, August 30, 2025 |
| CGC 9.0 | $1,260 | eBay, September 24, 2024 |
| CGC 9.0 | $720 | Heritage Auctions, March 5, 2024 |
| CGC 8.5 | $450 | eBay, April 7, 2026 |
| CGC 8.5 | $378 | Heritage Auctions, January 19, 2026 |
| CGC 8.5 | $319 | Heritage Auctions, October 31, 2025 |
| CGC 8.0 | $400 | eBay, July 5, 2026 |
| CGC 8.0 | $183 | Heritage Auctions, January 19, 2026 |
| CGC 8.0 | $300 | eBay, January 17, 2026 |
| CGC 7.5 | $150 | eBay, August 12, 2026 |
| CGC 7.5 | $320 | eBay, July 21, 2026 |
| CGC 7.5 | $288 | eBay, May 4, 2026 |
| CGC 7.0 | $218 | eBay, April 30, 2026 |
| CGC 7.0 | $113 | eBay, March 3, 2026 |
| CGC 7.0 | $219 | eBay, March 2, 2026 |
| CGC 6.5 | $160 | eBay, August 3, 2026 |
| CGC 6.5 | $74 | eBay, May 31, 2026 |
| CGC 6.5 | $154 | eBay, May 22, 2026 |
| CGC 6.0 | $125 | eBay, July 30, 2026 |
| CGC 6.0 | $104 | Heritage Auctions, July 23, 2026 |
| CGC 6.0 | $91 | eBay, June 29, 2026 |
| CGC 5.5 | $68 | eBay, June 7, 2026 |
| CGC 5.5 | $135 | eBay, May 27, 2026 |
| CGC 5.5 | $99 | Heritage Auctions, December 2, 2025 |
| CGC 5.0 | $80 | eBay, July 4, 2026 |
| CGC 5.0 | $129 | eBay, April 10, 2026 |
| CGC 5.0 | $75 | eBay, January 5, 2026 |
| CGC 4.5 | $75 | eBay, July 16, 2026 |
| CGC 4.5 | $79 | eBay, June 4, 2026 |
| CGC 4.5 | $45 | eBay, February 16, 2026 |
| CGC 4.0 | $55 | eBay, September 12, 2025 |
| CGC 4.0 | $35 | eBay, August 18, 2025 |
| CGC 4.0 | $40 | eBay, August 16, 2025 |
| CGC 3.5 | $59 | Heritage Auctions, November 30, 2024 |
| CGC 3.5 | $51 | Heritage Auctions, October 10, 2024 |
| CGC 3.5 | $60 | eBay, April 28, 2024 |
| CGC 3.0 | $35 | eBay, September 28, 2025 |
| CGC 3.0 | $52 | eBay, September 23, 2024 |
| CGC 3.0 | $50 | eBay, November 19, 2023 |
| CGC 2.5 | $62 | eBay, August 24, 2023 |
| CGC 2.0 | $50 | eBay, July 31, 2023 |
| CGC 2.0 | $70 | eBay, June 30, 2023 |
| Raw | $40 | eBay, August 8, 2026 |
| Raw | $30 | eBay, August 3, 2026 |
| Raw | $28 | eBay, July 29, 2026 |
Every row above is a documented sale, verifiable in Heritage’s public Marvel Super-Heroes issue index and in CGC’s published auction reporting. Sixty-five of them sit below 7.0, and thirteen more at 8.5, which is where most copies of this book end up.
Under two hundred dollars
The readable grades are among the cheapest of any first appearance on this list, across sixty-five sales since January 2025.
From May to August 2026: a 6.5 brought $160 and another $74, three 6.0 copies brought $200, $125 and $104, another brought $91, a 5.5 brought $135 and another $68, a 5.0 brought $80 and a 4.5 brought $79.
The 6.0 lane spanning $91 to $200 in three months is wide in percentage terms and trivial in dollars. That is what a market looks like when the whole grade is worth about a hundred and fifty dollars.
A first appearance of a character who has headlined a film, for under two hundred dollars in a presentable grade, is one of the better entry points anywhere on this site.
Whether to submit this one
This is the clearest grading calculation in the whole program, because the step is so sharp and so well documented.
If your copy grades 9.0, it is worth somewhere over a thousand dollars. If it grades 8.5, it is worth about three hundred and fifty. The submission fee is the same either way, and the difference between those two outcomes is most of the value of the comic.
So the question is not whether the copy is nice. It is whether you would bet the fee on it clearing 9.0, and on a 1968 Marvel that has been handled at all, the honest answer is usually no.
What tips it is a copy that has genuinely never been read: square corners, a flat spine with no ticks, and color that has not faded at the edges. If you are looking at a copy and finding reasons why a small flaw might not count, you already have your answer.
The exception, as always, is quantity. If several copies came out of the same collection and they all look untouched, submitting the best two or three spreads the risk and makes the bet a reasonable one.
It is also worth saying what this book is not. It is not a scarce comic, and the sixty-five readable sales in eighteen months prove it. What makes the 9.0 valuable is not rarity of the issue, it is rarity of the condition, and those are different problems with different odds attached.
That distinction is worth carrying to other books too. A comic can be common and still have an expensive top grade, and when it does, the premium is fragile: it depends on very few copies staying scarce. A single collection surfacing with a dozen clean copies would move the 9.0 line a long way, and there is nothing anybody can do to predict that.
Selling a Marvel Super-Heroes #13
- Twelve cents, September 1968. Captain Marvel collections reprint this story and state their edition inside.
- Say first appearance of Carol Danvers. She has no costume and no powers here, and buyers from the films need telling.
- Grade only if you would bet the fee on 9.0. Below that step the comic is worth about three hundred and fifty dollars.
- Do not confuse it with Ms. Marvel #1. That is the first costume, from 1977, and a different comic.
Photographs will tell me whether your copy is on the expensive side of that step or the cheap side, which on this comic is the entire question.
First Carol Danvers?
Captain Marvel collections reprint this story and each names its edition inside, so photograph the indicia — twelve cents, September 1968, no bar code — and the corners, which usually decide which side of 9.0 it lands. Text both over.
I read every request myself.
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
- The 100 most valuable Silver Age comics. And what each one really sold for.
- How grading actually works. And why one step on this ladder is worth three times the others.
- How much are my comic books worth?. The general version of the question this page answers for one issue.
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.
