WAR MACHINE #22

Cover shows strong gloss and sharp corners with no visible creases or color breaks; a small glare spot on the right edge is likely reflection from the protective sleeve rather than surface damage. Spine appears tight with no stress lines visible. The book is in a protective sleeve, which limits full assessment of edges; interior and back cover were not visible for grading.

War Machine #22, cover-dated January 1996, carries the chapter title "The Last Stand" and forms part of The Crossing, the Avengers-line crossover that recast Tony Stark as an agent of Kang. Dan Abnett scripts, with pencils by Fred Haynes and Yancey Labat and inks by Johnny Greene and Jimmy Palmiotti; Sergio Cariello supplies the cover. The issue sits in the final stretch of the series, after Jim Rhodes lost the conventional War Machine armor and took up the alien Eidolon Warwear introduced a few issues earlier, and it turns on his refusal to carry out the killing of Iron Man he was steered toward. Cybermancer, Century and other Force Works-adjacent players figure in the confrontation, tying the book directly into the wider crossover architecture of the period.

Market behavior here is that of a common late-run Modern Age Marvel title printed in volume during the speculative glut. Direct-edition copies circulate widely in dealer boxes and in online mixed lots, and single-issue sales cluster at bargain-bin levels regardless of whether a copy presents as VG or VF. The Crossing itself carries a poor critical reputation, which has kept crossover completists from bidding the tie-ins up the way Infinity- or Onslaught-era chapters occasionally move. Certified copies are close to nonexistent: submissions to CGC for this issue are rare enough that the slab market is driven by the cost of encapsulation rather than by any observable collector competition.

Buyers are chiefly Rhodes completists assembling the 1994-1996 run, readers filling The Crossing reading order, and the occasional Eidolon Warwear enthusiast following the arc that began in #18. Across raw grades the spread is essentially flat, since supply of high-grade copies is ample and condition premiums do not meaningfully attach until a book is slabbed. The practical trading pattern is run-lot sales rather than single-issue transactions, and any certified example should be understood as a scarcity-of-submission item, not a scarcity-of-book item.