FANTASTIC FOUR VS. THE X-MEN #4

Cover shows strong gloss and bright, unfaded colors with sharp corners and no visible creases or spine stress. The Spider-Man head logo in the barcode box confirms direct edition, and the small square on the left cover edge is a common QC-era corner ding but not evident here. Minor handling wear may exist but nothing significant is visible through the protective sleeve; back cover and interior pages were not assessed.

Fantastic Four vs. The X-Men #4 closes out Chris Claremont's four-issue 1987 limited series pairing Marvel's two flagship super-teams, with art by Jon Bogdanove and inks by Terry Austin. The finale resolves the series' central dramatic hook — Kitty Pryde's phasing illness caused by the Vibranium-laced Morlock tunnels — through an unlikely negotiation with Doctor Doom, who provides the cure in exchange for custody terms tied to his prior guardianship of Franklin Richards. The issue is a minor but well-remembered footnote in both the Fantastic Four and X-Men team-up canon, notable chiefly for cementing Doom's complicated, honor-bound relationship with the Richards family rather than for any first appearance or origin content.

Market data shows a thin but active certified population of roughly 53 census copies against 59 total graded, with sales concentrated in the near-mint range; even top-grade 9.8 copies have traded modestly, averaging around $100 in the most recent windows despite scarcity at that grade. Demand is driven by completists of the Claremont/Bogdanove run and X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover collectors rather than broad speculative interest, and pricing across the grade spectrum stays compressed — the gap between an 8.0 and a 9.8 is a matter of tens of dollars, not multiples of that in the hundreds seen with genuine keys.

This is a book bought by series completists, crossover-run collectors, and dealers filling out Copper Age X-Men/FF boxes rather than by investors chasing a key. Raw copies in lower grades trade near cover price and rarely attract competitive bidding, mid-grade raw copies move steadily at small premiums to dealers restocking long boxes, and the CGC 9.8 slab commands a real but modest premium reflecting its rarity on census rather than any landmark content. Expect flat, low-volatility performance across all grades for the foreseeable future.