Rare first edition of The Incredible Hulk comic sells for $490,000

The near-mint condition copy of the first Hulk story, in which the hero is depicted as grey not green, is the most expensive ever sold

A 60-year-old comic featuring the Incredible Hulk – in which the superhero is depicted in his original grey, rather than his signature green – has been sold for almost half a million dollars.

The rare copy of Incredible Hulk #1, which was published in 1962, was bought by a private collector for $490,000 (£360,000). Comic Connect, an auction site which handled the sale, said it was the most expensive copy of the first Hulk story ever sold.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the comic reveals the Hulk’s origin story, in which the scientist Dr Bruce Banner is exposed to toxic gamma rays, and thenceforth transforms into the Hulk when he loses his temper. In his first outing, the Hulk is shown with grey skin, but Marvel changed the colouring to his now-signature green for the second issue, because the four-colour printing process at the time meant the grey came out differently on different pages.

The issue is graded “very fine/near mint” on the comics grading scale. “Highly graded copies of Hulk No 1 are notoriously hard to find, due to the cheap paper used and the smudging of the grey colour on the front cover,” said Vincent Zurzolo from the comics site. Zurzolo predicted that the issue would “continue to gain in value”. “Vintage comic book values just keep going up,” he added.

The Hulk has a long way to go, however, before he smashes the record set by his Marvel stablemate, Spider-Man. In September, a copy of the 1962 comic Amazing Fantasy #15, in which Spider-Man makes his debut, sold for $3.6m (£2.5m).

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