ASTONISHING TALES #24

Cover shows strong gloss and vibrant color with sharp corners and no visible creases or major spine stress; a couple of very faint spine ticks are visible along the top spine edge. The comic is in a protective sleeve which slightly obscures fine detail assessment via glare. No tears, stains, or writing are visible on the front cover; interior and back cover were not assessed.

Astonishing Tales began in 1970 as a split-book anthology, pairing Ka-Zar's jungle adventures with rotating co-features before settling into a Ka-Zar solo showcase for its later run. Issue #24, cover-dated June 1974, arrives well into that solo stretch, continuing the lord of the Savage Land's exploits for Marvel's mid-1970s adventure line. It carries no first appearance, death, or landmark creative milestone that collectors or price guides single out, and its cover is a solid but unremarkable jungle-action illustration rather than one of the widely cited Bronze Age images.

The certified population is small and thinly traded, with only a dozen 9.8 copies on census and roughly six recorded sales at that grade, yet the 9.8 fair market value of $700 shows real demand for top-end copies despite the book's modest profile. Values fall off sharply as grade drops, with 9.4 copies fetching around $100 and books in the 8.0-9.0 range settling in the $48-$70 band; sales below 8.0 are recorded but too sparse to generate stable pricing, reflecting a book that circulates mostly among Ka-Zar and Bronze Age Marvel completists rather than broad speculative interest.

This is a collected-run book: buyers are largely Ka-Zar character collectors, Astonishing Tales run-builders, and Bronze Age label completists rather than key-issue investors. Raw copies in low and mid grade move cheaply and steadily as filler for long boxes and want lists, while the real premium sits at the top of the grading scale, where scarcity of true Gem Mint copies against a small but persistent 9.8 buyer pool supports outsized value relative to the rest of the curve. Expect the book to trade in lockstep with general Bronze Age Marvel demand rather than on any standalone key-issue narrative.