ACES HIGH #5

Graded at 4.0 (VG) on 2026-10-22, from new photos taken out of the sleeve: front, back, interior page and spine. Bright, glossy front cover. Chipping and colour-breaking ticks along the spine edge. Small chips at the bottom-left corner. Water mark and soiling on the tanned back cover. Cream to light tan pages.

Aces High #5 closed out one of EC Comics' New Direction titles, the line Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein launched in 1955 after the Comics Code Authority forced the cancellation of EC's horror and crime books. An aviation-war anthology in the vein of Kurtzman's earlier Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, the series ran only five issues before Gaines discontinued the New Direction experiment altogether, making this final number a natural stopping point for completists. The issue carries EC's signature high production values, with interior work from the studio's top talent, including Wallace Wood, George Evans, and Reed Crandall, artists whose meticulous linework on aircraft and combat sequences set EC's war comics apart from contemporaries.

Market data for the title is sparse, reflecting a low surviving census and modest sales velocity even among certified copies. The single hard data point, a mid-grade sale near $350, anchors a curve that rises steeply toward the top of the certified population, where only a handful of 9.4 and 9.6 copies have traded. No 9.8 has yet been certified, which is typical for a scarce, late-run EC title with a small print run and a collector base concentrated among EC completists and war-genre specialists rather than mainstream superhero buyers.

Demand centers on EC loyalists assembling full New Direction or Wood/Evans/Crandall art runs, plus war and aviation-comics collectors drawn to the genre rather than any character continuity, since the anthology carries no recurring cast. Raw copies in low and mid grade move infrequently and trade mostly within specialist EC circles, while a high-grade certified copy would likely draw competitive bidding given the thin census, though pricing at that tier remains an extrapolation until an actual 9.8 changes hands.