Printed in 1938, the cover features a grown man in red and blue underwear, wearing a red cape. Somehow, he’s managed to pick up a car, and is smashing it against a rock, scaring the hell out of the poor sap that was driving it, and his passenger, who has bolted into the distance. The driver’s friend is running for his life, pulling a scared baby face. (OK, to be fair, that’s not the actual story! Check out the link at the bottom of this page to get the real story).

This is the image on the cover of Action Comics No.1, the most coveted comic book of all time. It’s also the comic in which a little-known character known as ‘Superman’ was introduced to the world. 

There are rumoured to only be between 50 and 100 copies of Action Comics No.1 thought to exist. Of these, there are only 6 copies of collector grade - one of which belonged to actor Nicholas Cage, which was stolen in 2000 and found in 2011 and subsequently sold for $2.16 million. Hang on a minute…let’s try that again – a comic that was once sold for 10 US cents in June 1938 is now worth OVER TWO MILLION DOLLARS! Holy green bits of Kryptonite!

For the creators of Superman – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – their fame and fortune may never have happened at all, if it weren’t for the fact that the former National Allied Publications (later DC Comics) editor, Vin Sullivan, couldn’t find a lead feature and turned to a former colleague, Sheldon Mayer, who unearthed the rejected Superman strips.

The rest is history – a history that features a man in tight fitting clothes who some 75 years later continues to loom large over all subsequent superheroes.

Ever wanted to read the full version of Action Comics No.1? Now you can! Click here for an online version.

(Images: Courtesy DC Comics / National Comic Alliance 2012 )