DC COMICS PRESENTS #86

Cover shows strong gloss and vibrant color with sharp corners visible; a small crease/stress line is visible near the left edge above the barcode area. Slight bend/wear at bottom left corner and minor edge wear along the left spine edge. The book is in a protective sleeve, obscuring fine surface detail and back cover; interior pages were not assessed. Overall a well-preserved copy consistent with NM- range, but sleeve glare limits full defect visibility.

Cover-dated October 1985, DC Comics Presents #86 arrived in the middle of Crisis on Infinite Earths and carries the crossover banner, with Paul Kupperberg scripting "Into the Valley of the Shadow…!" over art by Rick Hoberg and Dave Hunt beneath a cover by Eduardo Barreto. Superman and Supergirl trace a wave of impossible weather to Blackstarr, a villain wielding control over cosmic forces, with a Batgirl cameo folded into the chase. Its historical hook is timing rather than novelty: this is Supergirl's final appearance in a Superman team-up book before her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, published the same month, and CGC notes the Crisis tie-in and Supergirl content on its label.

Market behavior matches that of a late-run Copper Age DC team-up title printed in quantity. Raw copies circulate constantly through dealer bins and online marketplaces at bin-book levels, with almost no spread between low and mid grades, and the newsstand format used here is the common one for the issue in the United States, so it draws no premium against direct-edition copies. The one edition that does separate is the 95-cent Canadian price variant, which sells at a multiple of the standard book and should not be conflated with an ordinary newsstand copy. Certified demand is intermittent: the census is small because submission costs approach the value of the book, and the practical ceiling is set by what buyers will pay for a top-grade example of a supporting-cast Crisis tie-in rather than by any first appearance.

Buyers divide into two groups. Supergirl and Crisis completists take raw mid-grade copies as inexpensive additions to a run, and set builders finishing DC Comics Presents absorb most of the supply at that level. High-grade certified copies interest registry collectors assembling Crisis crossover sets and those speculating on renewed Supergirl attention from screen projects; that thin buyer pool makes 9.8 results episodic and sensitive to timing. Between those poles the book is soft, since mid-grade copies are plentiful enough that condition upgrades rarely justify a premium, which argues for buying raw at the highest grade available and reserving certification for genuinely exceptional newsstand examples.