SHADOWMAN #3

Cover shows sharp corners and clean edges with no visible chipping or tears. Slight surface sheen/glare across the cover may be masking minor handling wear, and there is a very faint hint of spine stress near the top staple area. Colors appear vibrant with no fading or staining visible. Interior and back cover were not assessed, so grade is based solely on this front cover image.

Shadowman #3 continues the New Orleans-set horror-superhero title Valiant launched in 1992, following jazz musician Jack Boniface after his transformation into the night-stalking Shadowman. Faye Perozich scripts this installment, in which Nettie warns Jack about Sosa, a life-draining harbinger who works the city after dark; the story marks Sosa the Soul-Eater's first appearance. David Lapham supplies the cover and interior pencils alongside Mark Moretti, with Don Perlin editing. The issue sits early in a run that would matter more to the Valiant universe a few months later, when Master Darque arrived in #8, and it reflects the tonal territory that separated Shadowman from the company's science-fiction titles.

Market behavior is that of a common early-1990s book printed in quantity during the speculator boom. Supply is deep at every raw grade, single copies trade in the low single digits, and the title is most often encountered in run lots rather than as an individual purchase. Certified copies are scarce not because the book is hard to find in high grade but because grading costs exceed the underlying value, so the slabbed market is thin and driven largely by run collectors assembling matched sets. Interest in Valiant generally rises and falls with media announcements around the property, and Shadowman has cycled through several revival attempts; those cycles move the #1 and #8 far more than the surrounding issues.

Buyers here are Valiant completists filling a 1992 run, readers pursuing the Boniface storyline in order, and dealers building lots. Low-grade copies have effectively nominal standalone value and are worth handling only in bulk. Mid-grade raw copies clear quickly at pocket-change pricing and are the practical way most collectors acquire the issue. At the certified end, the premium reflects the cost and rarity of encapsulation rather than scarcity of the book itself, which means the spread between a sharp raw copy and a top-census slab is wide in percentage terms and modest in absolute dollars. Expect stable rather than appreciating performance absent a significant screen adaptation.