STRANGE TALES #4

Cover shows strong gloss and sharp, well-defined corners with no visible chipping. Spine appears tight with no evident stress lines or color breaks in this view, though a faint bend is visible at the upper left corner tip. No creases, stains, or writing are visible on the front cover. Interior and back cover were not assessed, and the book is in a protective sleeve which may mask minor surface issues.

Strange Tales #4 (volume 2) is part of Marvel's 1987 relaunch of the Strange Tales title as a vehicle for Cloak and Dagger, the light-and-dark duo introduced a few years earlier in Spectacular Spider-Man and given their own limited series before this ongoing. The book continued the pair's street-level, morally ambiguous adventures in New York, with writer Terry Austin steering the characters through their signature themes of addiction, vigilantism, and uneasy heroism. This nineteen-issue volume ran from 1987 to 1988 and represents the character's main ongoing showcase of the Copper Age before Cloak and Dagger were folded into other titles and eventually their own later miniseries.

As a mid-run issue of a short, lower-profile ongoing, this book carries no first appearance, death, or landmark creative milestone, and it has not been singled out by price guides or grading services as a book of particular note. Its market behavior reflects that status: it circulates as inexpensive back-issue and long-box material, with raw copies trading near or slightly above original cover price and graded submissions occurring infrequently enough that certified sales data is thin. Demand is driven almost entirely by Cloak and Dagger completists and readers filling out the volume rather than by speculative or investment interest.

For collectors, this is a reader's copy best suited to someone assembling a run of the character's Copper Age appearances rather than a standalone investment piece. Raw copies in any presentable grade are easy to find and inexpensive, while a high-grade CGC 9.8 slab, though scarce simply because few copies were submitted, still trades in the modest double-digit range typical of unheralded 1980s direct-market comics. It is a solid, unglamorous piece of Cloak and Dagger's publishing history rather than a book collectors actively chase.