STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #138

Cover shows a diagonal crease running from the upper right through the central figure's face, along with a lighter stress line near the top edge. Corners appear reasonably sharp with only mild wear, and the spine shows no major rolling in this view, though a faint vertical crease is visible near the left edge. Colors remain bright and unfaded. The book is in a protective sleeve, and interior pages and back cover were not assessed.

Star Spangled War Stories #138 arrived in May 1968 near the close of DC's long-running war anthology's dinosaur-adventure phase, a stretch built around Robert Kanigher's scripts and Joe Kubert's artwork that paired World War II soldiers with prehistoric threats on a hidden Pacific island. The title had established itself as one of DC's signature war books through the 1960s, and issues from this era are collected primarily for their Kubert cover work and the novelty of the dinosaur-war premise rather than for any single first appearance in issue #138 itself.

Market data shows a typical low-population Silver Age war book: census levels stay thin across the grade spectrum, sales are sparse above 9.0, and pricing rises steadily but not dramatically through the mid-grades before accelerating toward the top of the curve. Demand is driven by Kubert cover collectors and War That Time Forgot completists rather than by character-first-appearance buyers, which keeps the book's overall price ceiling well below genre keys while still rewarding well-preserved copies disproportionately.

This is a book bought by Silver Age war-comic specialists and Kubert-cover collectors filling out a run, not by generalist key-issue investors. Lower and mid-grade raw copies trade cheaply and steadily as reading/run copies, while high-grade certified examples are scarce enough that a true Gem Mint slab would likely command a real premium over the last verified sale, reflecting rarity as much as demand.