DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME #4

Cover shows sharp corners, glossy surface, and strong color with no visible spine stress lines or ticks. Slight softness may be present at the top edge but no creases, tears, or discoloration are evident in this photo. The Spider-Man head corner box confirms this is a direct edition, and the overall presentation suggests a high-grade copy, though interior pages and back cover were not assessed and could affect final grade.

Fourth issue of the ongoing series Marvel launched in late 1988 to return Stephen Strange to his own title, written by Peter B. Gillis with pencils by Richard Case and a cover by Erik Larsen executed after a Carl Potts design. The story continues the arc pitting Strange and the Dragon Circle, including Arthur Pendragon's modern-day descendants, against the Dragon of the Moon, and folds in former Defenders Valkyrie, Andromeda, and Manslaughter, tying the new run back to the Defenders continuity Gillis had closed out a few years earlier. Clea also figures in the issue. No first appearances or origin material occur here; the issue's interest is as an early chapter of a well-regarded creative run and as a Larsen cover that predates his work on Amazing Spider-Man.

This is a late-copper-age direct-market book from a period of high print runs and heavy speculator-era retention, so supply in high grade is abundant and unslabbed copies circulate freely in dealer stock and online at nominal prices. Demand is driven almost entirely by run collectors filling the 1988-1996 series and by Larsen completists, neither of which generates competitive bidding at the issue level. Certification is uncommon because the cost of grading exceeds any realistic return, which is precisely why the small number of top-grade slabs that do trade command a disproportionate multiple over raw copies; the price reflects the grading fee and scarcity of certified examples rather than underlying rarity of the book itself.

The natural buyers are set builders working the Sorcerer Supreme run and collectors assembling Erik Larsen cover work chronologically. Across grades the book trades flat: low-grade and mid-grade copies are effectively interchangeable at bulk levels, since almost no one seeks a worn copy of a plentiful 1989 issue, and the meaningful spread only opens at the certified end. Buyers wanting a high-grade example are generally better served buying a sharp raw copy and grading selectively, while sellers should expect this issue to move as part of a run lot rather than on its own merits.