SUPERMAN #165

Graded at 5.5 (FN-) on 2026-10-15, from new photos taken out of the sleeve: front, back, spine and interior page. Bright, glossy cover. Colour-breaking ticks and small creases in the black lower-left area. Light stress along the spine and lightly blunted corners. Clean back cover with cream pages.

Superman #165 (DC Comics, November 1963) presents "The Last Days of Superman," a story built around the conceit that the Man of Steel has contracted an incurable extraterrestrial illness and must set his affairs in order before his apparent demise. Scripted in the Mort Weisinger editorial era and illustrated by Curt Swan, the issue is representative of the imaginative, high-concept plotting that defined the character's early-1960s output, though it introduces no new characters and marks no origin, first appearance, or death of lasting continuity significance.

Market data for the issue tracks the broad pattern typical of mid-run, non-key Silver Age Superman comics: certified sales cluster in the mid-grade range with prices holding largely flat between roughly grade 4.5 and grade 8.0, reflecting steady but unspectacular collector demand. The absence of reported sale prices at the top of the census, despite a modest population of 9.0-and-above copies, suggests thin high-grade trading rather than outsized demand, a pattern consistent with a solid but unheralded issue in a heavily collected long-running title.

This book appeals primarily to Superman completists and Silver Age DC runs collectors rather than speculators chasing key issues, and it typically changes hands as part of broader run-building rather than as a standalone highlight. Raw copies in low and mid grade move steadily at modest prices, while high-grade certified examples are scarce enough that a 9.8 would likely command a significant premium over the established mid-grade plateau, though thin comparable sales at the top of the census warrant caution in pricing any single such copy.