DARK ANGEL #13

Cover shows sharp corners, strong glossy surface, and no visible spine stress, creases, or color breaking. Slight bend/wave visible along the left edge near the top corner but it appears minor. The book is bagged/sleeved which limits full assessment of edge wear, and the interior and back cover were not examined.

Dark Angel #13 (September 1993) continues the Marvel UK series that began as Hell's Angel #1-5 in 1992, following Shevaun Haldane after her rechristening in issue #6. "Aftermath" Part One is scripted by Bernie Jaye with pencils by Salvador Larroca and inks by David Hine, under editor Bambos Georgiou and editor-in-chief Paul Neary; Larroca also supplies the cover. The issue follows the Assassination arc and turns on the Mys-Tech board's transformation into the Techno-Wizards, with the Guide, the Encoders and Death's Head II drawn into the fallout. Its principal historical interest is as early professional work by Larroca, who would become a fixture on X-Men and Iron Man within a decade, and as part of the short-lived Mys-Tech corner of the Marvel UK line that also produced Death's Head II, Warheads and Knights of Pendragon.

Market behavior matches that of the wider 1992-93 Marvel UK line: high original print runs, low collector attrition, and steady but shallow demand. Copies surface regularly on eBay and dealer sites in high grade because the books were bought by speculators and largely left unread, which caps upside even for attractive Larroca covers. Trading is dominated by run-fillers and by buyers assembling the complete sixteen-issue Hell's Angel/Dark Angel sequence, and multi-issue lots are the most common transaction type. Certification is rare and generally uneconomic; where slabs do appear, the price reflects the cost of grading more than any established census scarcity.

The audience for this book is the completist rather than the investor: Marvel UK specialists, Death's Head and Mys-Tech collectors, and Larroca followers tracking his pre-Marvel-US output. Low- and mid-grade copies are functionally interchangeable bin stock and clear quickly when priced accordingly, while unread near-mint copies command only a slight premium. The sensible dealer approach is volume and presentation – complete runs, correctly identified creators, and clean high-grade raw copies – rather than any expectation of grade-driven appreciation.