TALES TO ASTONISH (1ST SERIES)

AS WITH ALL COMICS/TITLES, VALUES SUGGESTED ARE FOR 'RAW' COPIES. THIRD-PARTY GRADED COPIES CAN FETCH SIGNIFICANTLY MORE ESPECIALLY IN HIGH GRADES.

Titles like Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish featured strange monsters and weird creatures in a (mostly) science fiction context and between May and Jul 1960 were gradually introduced into British newsagents. Tales to Astonish gradually moved away from the monster content and began to highlight some of the Marvel anti-heroes still famous to this day such as The Incredible Hulk and the Sub-Mariner and after a run of 101 issues the series changed its name to The Incredible Hulk (2nd Series).

#27 a hot book in recent times with the Ant-Man films starring Paul Rudd. Pretty good I thought. And the character did well in Captain America: Civil War in particular.

The first UK distributed Tales to Astonish issue was #10 dated Jul 1960. So the previous nine issues that began with #1 cover dated Jan 1959 are always American cents cover priced. It is possible that a very small amount of issue #9 came over as market testers but I have never seen a #9 with a printed ninepence cover price. If you have one, send me a picture! Somewhere up to 5% (probably 2-3% rather than 4-5%) of the original American print run was given over to British priced copies for distribution primarily in the UK with some going to South Africa, West African colonies and Australia.

2014: with the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy film, the first appearance of Groot in issue #13 dated Nov 1960 has gone nuts, quadrupling in value! And five years later the comic is still hot and in demand.

Ones to also watch for/personnal favourites: issue #35 the 2nd Ant-Man and first in costume; #44 the first appearance of The Wasp; and #60 the first issue with The Hulk and Giant-Man alternating as stories.