Police Comics #1, Quality Comics, August 1941. Inside are the first appearances of Plastic Man, the Human Bomb, and the original Phantom Lady.
Three debuts in one ten-cent comic. A CGC 9.0 sold for $29,901 at ComicConnect in March 2026 — which is less than most people guess when they hear the contents. A mid-grade CGC 4.0 brought $18,000 at Heritage in October 2022, and the single 9.4 on the census reportedly brought $38,838 back in 2014.
Why three firsts do not multiply
A contents list does not add up, and this book is the clearest proof of it on my whole list.
Value attaches to whichever debut a collector actually wants, and everything else in the book comes along for free. Buyers here are after Plastic Man. The Human Bomb and the Quality Phantom Lady lengthen the description and do not add tiers of their own.
Plastic Man himself is the constraint. He is a genuinely beloved character among people who know comics, created by Jack Cole, and almost unknown to a general audience. No film, no long-running show, no sustained mainstream visibility. That keeps the demand narrow and knowledgeable rather than broad.
So a 9.0 — near the top of what survives from 1941 — at just under thirty thousand dollars is a coherent number rather than a bargain. It is what a scarce book with a devoted but small following does.
The two Phantom Ladies
This is a distinction worth getting right, because the money is very different.
The Phantom Lady who debuts here is the Quality Comics version from 1941. The character later moved to Fox, was redrawn by Matt Baker, and that Fox run produced the covers collectors chase — a Promise Collection 9.6 sold for $456,000 in 2021, though that record is a pedigree fluke, and ordinary Fox copies sell for a fraction of it.
Same character name, same basic concept, wildly different markets. If somebody tells you they have a first Phantom Lady, this is technically it, and it is worth a fraction of the famous Fox issues. That is a conversation worth having carefully.
Jack Cole, and why Plastic Man has the following he has
It is worth understanding why a character with almost no mainstream profile supports a book at this level.
Plastic Man was created by Jack Cole, and the strip he produced is regarded within the industry as some of the most inventive cartooning of the period — genuinely funny, formally adventurous, and unlike anything else on the newsstand at a time when most superhero comics were straightforward adventure stories.
That reputation has kept the material collected by people who care about the craft rather than the character. It is a smaller audience than a film would produce and a more durable one, and it does not evaporate when attention moves elsewhere.
It also means condition-sensitive buyers. Collectors who value the artwork want copies that present well, which pushes the premium toward high grade more than a purely historical first appearance would.
Selling a Police Comics #1
- Do not overvalue on the contents list. Three debuts read impressively and price as one.
- Confirm the publisher. Quality, 1941. A Fox Phantom Lady comic is a different book at a different level.
- Grade carefully. Two results bracket this book: a CGC 4.0 brought $18,000 at Heritage in October 2022, and the 9.0 brought $29,901 in 2026. Between those a grade opinion is worth real money.
- Keep the run. Early Police Comics issues carry value as Plastic Man’s home title.
I will tell you which of the debuts in a book is actually carrying the price, because on multi-feature Golden Age comics that is usually the whole question.
Have a copy?
Send three photos: front, back, and the small print. That is all I need to tell you where your copy really sits.
Related
- Phantom Lady #17, the Fox version of the character, and worth far more than this.
- The 100 most valuable Golden Age comics, and what each one really sold for.
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.
