THE SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK #5

Cover shows strong gloss and vibrant color with sharp corners and no visible creases or spine stress. Slight softness at top right corner is visible but no whitening or color break noted. Book is in a protective sleeve which may obscure minor edge wear; interior and back cover were not assessed.

Cover-dated September 1989, this is the fifth installment of the second She-Hulk solo title, produced during John Byrne's initial run as writer, penciler, and cover artist, with inks by Bob Wiacek and color by Glynis Oliver. Byrne had been given a brief to do something different with the character, and the result was a metafictional comedy in which Jennifer Walters addresses the reader, argues with her creators, and treats the panel border as a physical object — an approach that predates Marvel's later, better-known fourth-wall breakers. The issue continues the revival of the Golden Age Blonde Phantom, Louise Mason, whose reintroduction in the preceding issue established the supporting-cast dynamic that would define the series, and pits She-Hulk against Stilt-Man, with flashback cameos for Captain America and the Sub-Mariner.

Market-wise this is a mid-run Copper Age book from a period of very high print runs, and it trades accordingly. Raw copies are plentiful in every grade from reading copy upward, and the practical floor is bulk-box pricing rather than any scarcity-driven number. What demand exists is driven by two things: completists assembling the Byrne run, and the general lift She-Hulk material has received from the character's television and animation exposure. That lift has been most visible on the title's recognized keys — the first issue, the origin issue, and the later covers collectors argue about — while non-key issues such as this one have moved comparatively little. Certified copies are the only place where meaningful money appears, and even there the census is shallow enough that individual sales swing the average.

The buyer for this book is a run collector or a Byrne specialist rather than an investor. In low and mid grades it is a fill-in purchase, usually acquired as part of a lot; the transaction cost of shipping and grading exceeds the book's value, which caps what any single raw copy can realistically bring. At the top of the scale the calculus changes: high-grade Copper Age Marvel newsstand copies with clean spines and square corners are less common than raw supply suggests, and a slabbed 9.8 has a small but real audience among collectors building certified runs. Anyone contemplating submission should weigh grading fees carefully against the modest certified ceiling, since the spread between a sharp raw copy and a slab is largely the cost of the slab itself.