IRON MAN #182

Cover shown through a protective sleeve appears glossy with strong color saturation on the orange logo and no visible fading. Corners appear sharp with no whitening or bluntness, and the spine shows no visible ticks, stress lines, or rolling. A few faint diagonal reflection streaks are visible but these appear to be glare/scratches on the outer plastic sleeve rather than the comic surface itself. No creases, tears, stains, or writing are visible on this front cover; interior pages and back cover were not assessed.

Iron Man #182 arrived in May 1984 during writer Denny O'Neil's run on the title, a period defined by Tony Stark's fall into alcoholism and James Rhodes carrying on as Iron Man in his place. Pencils were handled by Luke McDonnell, whose gritty, shadow-heavy style became the visual signature of this stretch of the series as the emerging Obadiah Stane storyline pushed the book toward one of Marvel's most acclaimed character-driven arcs of the decade. The issue itself is a mid-arc chapter rather than a landmark single issue, with no first appearance, death, or origin attached to it.

Market activity reflects that status: certified sales cluster almost entirely at the top of the grade scale, with a wide gap between a plentiful 9.8 population and thinner mid-grade certification, typical of a book collected mainly by Iron Man run-builders and O'Neil/McDonnell completists rather than speculators. Demand is steady but modest, tracking the broader Copper Age direct-market segment where print runs were high and raw supply remains abundant. The recent pullback in average 9.8 sale price from its one-year average points to a book whose ceiling is capped by availability rather than scarcity.

This is a driver for long-box and full-run buyers assembling the Stark-into-Rhodes storyline rather than a standalone investment piece. Raw copies in low and mid grade are inexpensive and plentiful, changing hands mostly as fill-in material in bulk lots or discount bins. High-grade certified copies see modest but consistent turnover, appealing to census-chasers and Iron Man specialists, but the book does not command premiums outside of top-tier slabs.