STAR TREK #4

Cover shows strong gloss and vivid color with sharp corners and no visible creases or spine stress; the book is protected in a plastic sleeve which limits full assessment of surface sheen. Barcode box is intact and clean, indicating a newsstand edition in above-average preservation. No fading, tears, or writing observed on the front cover. Interior pages and back cover were not assessed, so grade is based solely on the visible front.

Marvel's 1980 Star Trek ongoing launched to capitalize on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, pairing writer and editor Marv Wolfman with penciler Dave Cockrum, inker Klaus Janson, colorist Carl Gafford, and letterer Jim Novak. Issue #4 is notable within the run for sending Kirk, Spock's usual shipmates, and the rest of the Enterprise crew up against analogues of Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster, an overt genre mashup that plays to Wolfman's horror-writing background from Tomb of Dracula. The issue introduces no new characters to the broader Star Trek franchise and carries no origin, death, or landmark first appearance; its interest is rooted in the unusual story premise and the pedigree of its creative team rather than any canonical milestone.

The title as a whole trades as a well-remembered but lightly speculated Bronze Age Marvel license book, with demand concentrated among Star Trek completists and admirers of Cockrum and Janson's art rather than broad key-issue buyers. As a newsstand periodical tied to a film-era licensing push, it was printed in significant quantity, so high-grade survivors are not especially scarce and CGC 9.8 pricing sits well below the marquee Bronze Age keys of the same period. The Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster cover gives issue #4 more visual distinctiveness than many other numbers in the run, which tends to support somewhat firmer demand at the top of the grade scale relative to plainer entries in the series.

This book suits Star Trek run-builders, licensed-comics collectors, and buyers assembling Cockrum or Janson art collections rather than investors chasing appreciation. Low-grade reading copies move as inexpensive filler in dollar bins and bulk lots, mid-grade raw copies sell in modest, steady fashion to collectors completing the 1980-1982 Marvel run, and CGC 9.8 examples command a real but bounded premium reflecting a thin population of top-graded copies rather than any broad speculative pressure.