DOCTOR STRANGE #43

Cover shows strong gloss and bright inks with sharp corners overall; a few faint vertical crease lines are visible running through the lower center art, and there's minor surface handling wear near the spine edge. The barcode block is intact with no major spine stress ticks visible. Book is in a protective sleeve, which limits full assessment of edges; interior and back cover were not assessed.

Doctor Strange #43 arrives late in the character's second-volume Bronze Age run, pairing a Chris Claremont script with Gene Colan's atmospheric interior art on the Shadowqueen arc, inked and colored by a team including Dan Green and Barry Grossman. The issue's most notable creative credit is its cover, drawn and inked by Michael Golden, an artist whose brief but influential tenure at Marvel and DC in this period (Micronauts, Batman: The Untold Legend) has made his cover work a minor draw for collectors of his output specifically. Clea, Wong, and the villainess Shadowqueen round out the cast in a story that is squarely mid-run continuity rather than an origin, first appearance, or landmark single issue.

The certified population is thin, with only 24 of 36 graded copies appearing on census and sparse sales data even at the top end, reflecting the low overall demand typical of non-key Bronze Age Doctor Strange issues from this stretch of the title. Fair market values step up sharply between 9.0 and 9.8, a common pattern for lower-population books where a handful of transactions define the entire high-grade curve, and raw copies in low and mid grades trade closer to bulk back-issue pricing than to any meaningful premium. Demand here is driven almost entirely by Michael Golden completists and Doctor Strange series runs, not by any key-issue narrative.

This is a book for series collectors filling Doctor Strange Volume 2 runs and for Michael Golden cover collectors rather than speculative buyers. Expect raw copies below CGC 6.0 to move at nominal prices, mid-grade raw copies to sell modestly above cover price, and high-grade CGC 9.8 examples to command outsized premiums relative to lower grades simply due to scarcity of top-census copies rather than any inherent story significance. It is not a book expected to see aggressive bidding outside of a strong Golden-cover or complete-run context.