ADVENTURE COMICS #346

Photo is upside down; cover shows moderate general wear typical of a mid-1960s Silver Age book. Corners appear slightly rounded and there is visible edge wear along the top and right borders, with a faint diagonal crease running through the lower right quadrant near the logo. Color appears bright with no obvious major stains, but slight spine stress lines are visible near the staple area. Interior pages and back cover were not assessed.

Adventure Comics #346 (July 1966) is best known in collecting circles as the professional debut of writer Jim Shooter, who sold his first Legion of Super-Heroes script to editor Mort Weisinger while still a teenager, launching a career that would later include a lengthy tenure as Marvel's editor-in-chief. By this point in its run, Adventure Comics had shifted its lead feature to the Legion of Super-Heroes, with Supergirl relegated to a back-up strip; the interior art on the Legion story was handled by regular series artist John Forte, with a cover most consistent with Curt Swan's work for the line during this period. The issue captures a pivotal moment in Legion history, both for the series' growing sophistication under Shooter's plotting and for the broader Silver Age transition of DC's teen-hero titles toward more complex, continuity-driven storytelling.

The certified population data shows a book that is reasonably available in mid and lower grades but drops off sharply in true high grade: only two copies have reached 9.6, and none have been certified at 9.8, a common pattern for a lower-profile 1966 anthology title that was not heavily preserved at the time of publication. Pricing reflects that scarcity curve directly, with values holding in a narrow band through the 6.0-8.0 range before rising steeply at 9.2 and again at 9.4, where recent sales cluster near $2,800. Demand is driven primarily by Legion of Super-Heroes completists and by collectors and historians tracking Jim Shooter's creative history, rather than by any first appearance of a major character.

Raw copies in low and mid grade trade as affordable reading or filler copies for Legion runs, priced modestly and readily available given the healthy census. The real collecting interest concentrates at the top of the grading scale, where the near-total absence of pristine certified copies creates outsized premiums for anything approaching a 9.6 or better; a 9.8, should one surface, would likely draw aggressive bidding from Legion and Shooter-focused collectors rather than trade at an incremental step above 9.4. This is a book whose value curve rewards patience at the high end far more than typical mid-run Silver Age issues.