STRANGE TALES #155

Cover shows moderate wear typical of a Silver Age book: mild corner softness at top left, some faint surface scuffing across the black background, and slight edge wear along the right border. Colors remain bright and the spine appears mostly tight with no major creases visible, though there is a subtle vertical fold line near the top of the cover. The book is in a protective sleeve which limits full assessment of edge and spine ticks; back cover and interior pages were not evaluated.

Strange Tales #155 arrived in April 1967 as Marvel's split-book format neared its close, pairing a Doctor Strange feature carried over from Stan Lee's earlier work with Steve Ditko with a Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD backup drawn during Jim Steranko's celebrated run on the series. Steranko had taken over SHIELD art duties a few issues earlier and was rapidly pushing the strip toward the psychedelic, cinematic layouts that would define his brief but influential tenure. This issue does not carry a recognized first appearance or origin story, but it sits squarely within the run collectors seek out for Steranko's visual innovations and for the twilight Ditko-influenced sorcery of the Doctor Strange half.

Market activity across the certified population, which spans 200 Universal copies within a 244-count census, shows a book that trades cheaply through the mid grades and then accelerates sharply at the top. FMVs sit in a narrow band from the high 4s and 5s (around $32-$34) up through grade 7 ($36), only beginning meaningful appreciation past 8.5, and then jumping steeply between 9.4 ($375) and the current census ceiling of 9.6 ($850). That kind of curve is typical of a well-distributed but lightly-collected split-format Silver Age issue: affordable in average condition, but scarce and increasingly contested in true high grade, where Steranko-art copies draw premium attention regardless of the issue's non-key status.

This is a book for Silver Age Marvel completists, Steranko and Nick Fury specialists, and Doctor Strange run-builders rather than speculative key-issue buyers. Raw copies in low and mid grade remain inexpensive entry points reflecting broad availability, while the absence of any 9.8 on the census means a top-graded example would likely command a significant premium over the current 9.6 benchmark, driven by scarcity at the summit of the grading pyramid rather than by any landmark story content.