THE INCREDIBLE HULK #245

Cover shows strong gloss and sharp corners with no visible creases or color breaks. Spine appears tight with no stress lines visible in this photo. Minor edge wear may be present but not clearly visible under the protective sleeve; slight glare from the bag obscures some surface detail. Interior and back cover were not assessed, so grade reflects front cover appearance only.

Cover-dated March 1980, this installment of Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema's long tenure on The Incredible Hulk opens the storyline in which the Hulk storms Gamma Base convinced the Army is holding Jarella's body. Glenn Talbot, wearing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s upgraded Super-Mandroid armor, fights him to a standstill until Captain Mar-Vell intervenes; Rick Jones, meanwhile, works the television talk-show circuit. Al Milgrom supplied the cover, George Roussos colored, and Milgrom also edited the title during this stretch. The issue is notable to run collectors mainly as a Mantlo/Buscema set piece and for the Mar-Vell appearance late in that character's original run, not for any first appearance or origin.

Market behavior is that of a common Bronze Age Marvel newsstand book from a period of high print runs and heavy survivorship. Raw copies circulate constantly on eBay and dealer sites, frequently inside multi-issue Hulk run lots rather than as standalone listings, which keeps individual prices flat and buyer-driven. Certified activity is sparse: the issue is submitted infrequently, so slabbed examples appear only occasionally, and when a high-grade copy does surface it tends to sell on scarcity of the grade rather than on demand for the story. Newsstand distribution was the dominant channel in early 1980, so the newsstand edition is the readily available format; the direct edition of this issue is the scarcer of the two and is distinguishable by heavier inking on the Hulk's face.

Buyers are chiefly run collectors filling the #200-300 stretch, Mantlo/Buscema completists, and Captain Mar-Vell appearance collectors. Across grades the book trades on a compressed curve: low- and mid-grade copies are effectively reader stock priced by the handful, while the premium sits almost entirely at the top of the scale, where a certified near-mint-plus example commands a multiple driven by grade rarity. Anyone building the run should expect to acquire this issue cheaply in circulated condition and to pay disproportionately for a high-grade certified copy, with resale liquidity strongest in the raw brackets and thinner, slower, and more auction-dependent at the certified end.