FANTASTIC FOUR #274

Graded at 8.0 (VF) on 2026-11-04, from new photos taken out of the sleeve: front and back. Shallow nick about 3/8 inch long on the back's open edge near the lower corner, with a tiny crease at that corner. Thin band of the front's art along the back's spine edge, the copyright line sitting on the fold. Clean spine with no color-breaking ticks. Other corners sharp, good gloss.

Fantastic Four #274 (January 1985) arrives during John Byrne's celebrated run as writer, penciler, and cover artist on the title, at a point when the series was working through the fallout of Reed Richards' unilateral defeat of Doctor Doom several years earlier in the story. This installment is part of the multi-issue arc in which Reed is brought before the World Court to answer for that act, a storyline that reshaped the team's internal dynamics and helped cement Sue Storm's evolution into the more assertive Invisible Woman and She-Hulk's tenure as a full-time member covering for Reed's absence from the field. While not a first appearance or origin issue, it is representative of the character-driven, high-craft plotting that defines Byrne's tenure as one of the most consistently praised runs in the title's history.

Market data reflects a well-populated but modestly traded Copper Age direct-market book: certified population sits at 186 Universal copies, concentrated heavily at the 9.6-9.8 tier, with 49 recorded sales at 9.8 anchoring the high-grade figure. Demand is driven primarily by Byrne-run completists and Fantastic Four series collectors rather than key-issue speculation, and pricing across the certified population falls off sharply below near-mint, consistent with a common, easily found back-issue rather than a scarce or heavily contested book. There is no meaningful sales activity recorded below the 8.0-8.5 range, underscoring that lower-grade copies see little collector interest.

This issue suits collectors assembling a complete run of Byrne's Fantastic Four or building out the