ACTION COMICS #666

Cover shows sharp corners and clean edges with strong color and gloss retained; no visible spine ticks, creases, or color breaks in this photo. The book is protected in a plastic sleeve which limits full assessment, and there is a small mark near the middle right edge that may be a light bend or reflection. Interior pages and back cover were not assessed, so grade is based solely on the visible front cover condition.

Action Comics #666 closes James D. Hudnall's three-part "Red Glass" arc, drawn by Ed Hannigan with inks by Will Blyberg under an Andy Kubert cover. The story is a hallucination sequence in which Superman appears to slaughter his fellow heroes — Guy Gardner, the Martian Manhunter, Captain Atom, Firestorm and the Doom Patrol all figure into the nightmare before the alien source of the visions is revealed. The Doom Patrol cameo is the detail specialists point to, since Grant Morrison's mature-readers version of the team, Crazy Jane included, almost never crossed into the mainline DC titles in this period. It is a self-contained fill-in rather than a continuity pivot, arriving in the stretch between the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite and the Panic in the Sky/Death of Superman era that dominates collector attention in this run.

Market behavior is that of a late Copper Age Superman book printed in quantity: high-grade raw copies are easy to source, dealer inventory turns at bulk levels, and the issue most often changes hands inside Action Comics run lots rather than as a standalone purchase. The one demand quirk is the issue number itself, which draws occasional novelty buyers hunting 666-numbered books alongside Detective Comics #666 and similar coincidences, and that trickle of interest is what supports certified copies at all. Census representation is thin because there is no economic case for submitting the book, so certified pricing tracks the cost of grading plus a small premium rather than any underlying scarcity of the paper.

The natural buyers are Action Comics run completists working toward the #700 and #1000 milestones, Doom Patrol and Morrison-era collectors chasing peripheral appearances, and the small number-novelty niche. Across grades the spread is compressed: the difference between a well-read copy and a sharp unslabbed near-mint copy is a matter of a few dollars, and only certification creates a genuine step up in price. Dealers are best served offering this as a clean run filler at volume, reserving encapsulation for copies already sent in as part of a larger submission.