Earlier this year it was reported that a rare Superman comic sold for a record-breaking $3.25million, narrowly beating the previous record of $3.2million in 2014. And with many franchises continuing to grow, the demand for rare memorabilia is clearly following suit.
Interested in finding out which superhero comics resell for the most, the personal finance experts at Money UK collated a list of superheroes and web scraped current eBay listings to determine which character has the highest reselling price on average.
The 10 highest selling superheroes in comics on average:
| Superheroes | Median resale price | Most expensive current listing | |
| 1 | Spider Man | $16,330 | $89,500 |
| 2 | X-Men | $13,200 | $245,000 |
| 3 | Batman | $10,413 | $3,500,000 |
| 4 | Wolverine | $9,997 | $42,950 |
| 5 | Incredible Hulk | $9,325 | $76,359 |
| 6 | Fantastic Four | $7,949 | $104,125 |
| 7 | Superman | $4,998 | $3,500,000 |
| 8 | Captain America | $4,997 | $41,643 |
| 9 | Iron Man | $4,925 | $90,242 |
| 10 | Thor | $4,766 | $44,000 |
The superhero comic that holds the most value to potential investors on average is Spiderman. Money UK revealed that the Spiderman comics hold the highest median resale price at $16,330 per comic, with the most expensive Spiderman comic listed on eBay at $89,500.
In the second place, and with a current median resale price on eBay of $13,200, is X-Men. The site’s most expensive X-Men comic is currently listed at $245,000.
Taking the third spot is Batman with a median current selling price of $10,413, in fourth is Wolverine ($9,997) and placing fifth is the Incredible Hulk ($9,325).
The most expensive comics:
The personal finance experts at Money UK can reveal of all the superhero comics analyzed, Superman and Batman currently have the most expensive current listing on eBay, priced at $3,500,000.
Taking a big jump down is Catwoman whose most expensive comic is listed for $575,000.
The personal finance expert at Money UK, James Andrews, said: “There are a wide variety of reasons why people are fascinated in comic books; the artwork, the storylines, the escapism and the emotional value they hold. Comic books are not only carrying on the legacy of so many great fictional characters but are also increasing in value as time goes on. Our research discovered that Spiderman’s comics have the highest average resell price on eBay. Despite being introduced to us back in 1962, these results just go to show how valuable the superhero is to fans across the globe. Fans are equally as excited by Superman, who holds the record for highest-selling superhero comic at auction, with one supporter paying $3.25 million for a rare copy. Not only are comic books gaining more value than ever before, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time and it shows no signs of slowing down.”
Some of their key findings include:
- On average, Spiderman’s comics have the highest resell price of any other superhero comic
- From analyzing hundreds of sought-after superhero comic listings, findings show that Spiderman’s resell for the most on average ($16,330)
- Placing second, with an average reselling price of $13,200, are the X-Men.
- Overall, Superman and Batman currently have the highest priced comic on eBay, at $3,500,000.
Methodology:
- Money UK were curious to uncover which superhero holds the most value in comics being sold.
- To do this Money UK utilized a list of 46 superheroes and input each superhero plus the word ‘comic’ into eBay. E.g., “Superman comic”.
- Asterix, The Atom, Elektra, The Rocketeer, The Shadow and Zatara were excluded from the data due to insufficient results on eBay.
- Money UK filtered the results by the highest selling and highest sold comics, and web scraped the first page of results, analyzing the cost of 2,000 superhero comics in total.
- To calculate the exchange rate for both data in dollars and pounds, Money UK used XE.com for the current and most accurate numbers. On 01/08/21 the rate was 1 USD = 1.38 and 1 GBP = 0.72.
- The median price for each superhero’s listed comic books was then calculated and ranked to reveal the superhero with the most valuable comic book memorabilia.
