KORAK, SON OF TARZAN #18

Cover is complete and attached with the full Gold Key logo box and 12c price intact, but the paper shows overall tanning/oxidation and light soiling, most visible in the cream background and along the top edge. Visible spine-area wear with light stress and a shallow vertical bend running down the left side of the cover, plus mild edge wear and blunted corners at the top-left and bottom-right; some surface abrasion where the top-left logo panel meets the edge. The book is bagged, so glare across the upper right and center may be masking additional creases or ticks. Interior pages and back cover were not assessed from this single photo.

Korak, Son of Tarzan #18 continues Western Publishing's Gold Key adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs jungle mythos, with Gaylord DuBois scripting the son of Tarzan's ongoing adventures and interior art by Nat Edson. George Wilson, the studio's principal cover painter during this era, supplies the cover art, continuing the clean, representational painted-cover style that distinguished Gold Key's licensed adventure line from the costumed-hero output of its Silver Age contemporaries. The issue holds no first appearances, deaths, or other events that collectors flag as landmark, and its place in the run is as a solid but unremarkable entry in a long-running licensed title.

Market data for this issue is sparse, reflecting the low overall collector demand typical of mid-run Gold Key adventure comics outside a handful of higher-profile issues. Certified population is thin across the board, with only a handful of copies graded at 9.6 and 9.4 and a single 8.0 on record; no example has reached the 9.8 or higher tier, underscoring how little high-grade material has been submitted rather than any inherent rarity of the issue itself. The modest FMV recorded at 9.6 suggests a ceiling driven by a small pool of Tarzan-adjacent completists rather than broad speculative interest.

This is a book most likely to move within Burroughs and jungle-adventure specialist circles, or as filler within larger Gold Key or Tarzan-family runs being assembled by series collectors. Raw copies in low and mid grades trade cheaply and are readily available in back-issue bins and online lots, while a true high-grade CGC submission would command a premium chiefly because so few copies have been certified, not because demand is deep. Long-term appreciation is tied closely to the broader health of the Tarzan and Gold Key collecting niche rather than to any characteristic unique to issue #18.