ACTION COMICS #658

Cover shows strong gloss and vibrant color with sharp, unblunted corners in the visible views. No barcode is present in the upper price box area, consistent with a direct-market edition; the box graphic appears clean and undamaged. No spine ticks, creases, or color breaks are visible along the spine edge, and there are no obvious stains or tears on the front. The book is in a protective sleeve, which limits full inspection of edges and surface; back cover and interior pages were not assessed.

Action Comics #658 closes the three-part "Sinbad Contract" crossover carried over from Adventures of Superman #471, scripted by Bill Messner-Loebs with pencils by Curt Swan, a cover by Kerry Gammill, and color by Glenn Whitmore. The story turns on Lex Luthor brokering alien technology through the D.M.T. in pursuit of a stolen artifact, with Superman caught between Luthor's maneuvering and the powered antagonist Sinbad; Cat Grant and the WGBS newsroom figure in the coverage of the standoff. It sits in the tightly serialized post-Crisis Superman line of the Mike Carlin editorial era, roughly two years ahead of the Death of Superman cycle, and is of interest chiefly as late-career Swan artwork on the character he defined for decades.

Market profile is that of a common Copper Age Superman book: enormous direct-market print run, wide availability in dealer stock and bulk collections, and no first appearance, origin, or death to concentrate demand. Raw copies trade almost exclusively as run filler and are more often absorbed into multi-issue Superman lots than sold individually. Certified activity is minimal, and what slab demand exists comes from registry-style run builders assembling high-grade post-Crisis Action Comics rather than from speculators, which keeps the top of the market thin but not worthless.

Buyers are set collectors completing the 640s-670s stretch of Action Comics, Swan completists, and readers filling in the crossover chapters around it. The book grades well in practice because it is a late newsprint-era issue that saw heavy direct-market handling in bags, so census scarcity at the top reflects submission economics rather than genuine condition rarity, and the cost of grading exceeds the value of anything below the highest tier. Expect low- and mid-grade copies to move at pocket change while a certified near-mint example commands a modest multiple sustained by run builders; the sensible acquisition strategy is high-grade raw at bulk pricing.