THE HAWK AND THE DOVE #4

Cover shows moderate wear consistent with a mid-grade Silver Age book: visible vertical creasing and stress lines running through the large foreground figure's leg, some surface scuffing and minor color rub along the left edge, and light corner softness at top left and bottom left. The book is in a protective sleeve which limits full assessment of edges; no major tears or missing pieces are visible, but multiple faint crease lines keep this out of higher grades. Interior and back cover were not assessed.

The Hawk and the Dove #4 (March 1969) is part of the brief six-issue run that introduced two of Steve Ditko's more philosophically charged creations, the pacifist Dove and his hot-tempered brother Hawk, who debuted the year prior in Showcase #75. By issue #4, Ditko had departed the series, and art duties had passed to Gil Kane, with Steve Skeates continuing as writer; the book reflects DC's brief experiment with morally ambiguous, politically inflected superheroics amid the late-1960s Vietnam-era cultural climate. No major first appearances or landmark creative milestones occur in this specific issue, and it is best understood as a representative artifact of a short-lived, thematically interesting but commercially modest series.

Market data reflects a low-demand Silver Age title: census population sits at 66 CGC Universal copies, concentrated in mid-to-high grades, with sparse sales activity at the bottom of the grade curve and only a handful of transactions overall. Values climb steeply only at the top of the census, with CGC 9.8 copies commanding a clear premium over 9.6 and below, consistent with the scarcity of pristine copies from a title that saw limited print runs and little speculative interest at the time of publication. Demand is driven almost entirely by Ditko completists and collectors of the short-lived Hawk and Dove concept rather than by any first-appearance premium.

This issue trades as a affordable back-issue for most of its grade range, appealing primarily to Silver Age DC completists, Ditko-era collectors, and readers assembling the full six-issue run rather than investors chasing a key. High-grade certified copies, particularly CGC 9.8, see disproportionate interest given their rarity on census, while raw copies in low and mid grades remain readily available and inexpensively priced, making the book a low-stakes entry point rather than a marquee acquisition.