Remember the book I was telling you about a couple of weeks ago, titled The Swap, by Antony Moore? I had been bothered by the fact that the MacGuffin of the story—a copy of Superman #1—was stated as being valueless when traded away by a kid in the UK in 1982, and now that I’ve finished the book, I’m still bothered by it.

I (first of all) found it difficult to swallow that a 12-year-old kid in 1982 would even have a copy of Superman #1 (especially when that kid lived in the UK, and there are only a total of 46 copies extant in the world today), and (second) even if he did manage to end up with a copy, that he would not suspect its worth at the time, considering all the newspaper coverage in the previous decade about the value of Golden Age comics.

The fact that the novel revolved around that particular comic took me out of the story right from the beginning, and even though it turned out to be a well-written book with nice touches of character and setting, it annoys me still. As I wrote back on August 3, I was hoping for an explanation as to how the protagonist could be so ignorant of its worth back then, and … well … I didn’t really get any.

Here are some quotes from further on in the book:

“It was just a comic. I swapped it years ago with Charles Odd, when we were twelve. When I had it it wasn’t worth much, but it has gained in value and become rather rare.” [page 118]

“Gingerly and with great caution he opened the plastic sheath in which the comic was wrapped. He recognized the seal on the package that was stuck as he had stuck it in 1982. It had never been broken. Bleeder had never read it. The comic was old then, of course, not as valuable as it was now, but old. Forty years old.” [139]

“Standing up, he pushed the Superman One into the back of his trousers.” [145]

That last detail, from a scene set in the present, really struck me, because doing that could damage the condition of the comic and knock tens of thousands of dollars off the value, so even if the protagonist needed to do such a thing to avoid being found out (for what, I’ll let you discover yourself), the author should have had him wince while doing so.

As you can see, I didn’t get a backstory that satisfied me.

As for the value of Superman #1 in 1982, none of my readers here rose to the challenge, but I just discovered the value of some other comics from that same time frame. According to Mark Engblom’s site Comic Coverage, in 1982, the Overstreet Price Guide valued Action Comics #1 (the first appearance of Superman) at $13,500, Detective Comics #27 (the first appearance of Batman) at $7,500, and Marvel Comics #1 (which contained the first appearances of the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner) at $16,000. Even the Silver Age comics Showcase #4 (with the first Silver Age Flash) was $1,100, Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first Spider-Man) was $1000, and Fantastic Four #1 was $1,200. So in 1982, Superman #1 wasn’t just your average comic book which unexpectedly rose in value later. It was already a treasure.

It will be interesting to see whether anyone else is bothered by this. (I’m also bothered by the fact that a couple of sentences added to the backstory could have removed the distraction, and explained the kid’s ignorance.)

Here’s hoping that this complaint doesn’t make me sound too much like Comic Book Guy!