WAR MACHINE #23

Cover shows strong gloss and sharp corners with no visible creasing or spine stress; the book is protected in a plastic sleeve which limits full assessment of edges and surface. No color breaks, tears, or stains are visible in this photo. Interior and back cover were not assessed, so grade is based solely on the visible front cover.

Published with a February 1996 cover date, this is the penultimate stretch of James Rhodes' first solo ongoing, written by Dan Abnett with pencils by Fred Haynes and a cover by Jim Calafiore and Johnny Greene. The story carries War Machine into The Crossing, the Avengers-wide event that recast Tony Stark as Kang's pawn, and sends Rhodey to Starcore Station to face Dirge, an opposite number outfitted in an Eidolon Warwear suit of his own. By this point Rhodes had shed the classic gray armor for the organic Warwear, a direction that gives the late issues a distinct look within the character's publishing history. Mark Gruenwald and Nel Yomtov edited; Sheva Joseph, the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent introduced early in the run, appears in support.

Market behavior follows the pattern of mid-1990s Marvel books published into a collapsing direct market: print runs on the back half of this series were modest, but so was and remains collector demand, so raw copies circulate as inexpensive run filler in dealer boxes and multi-issue eBay lots rather than as individually tracked sales. The certified population is negligible, which cuts both ways. Scarcity at the top of the census means a high-grade slab has few competitors when one is listed, but the shallow buyer pool makes any single result unreliable as a benchmark, and months can pass between transactions. Interest in the character spikes with screen appearances, and those spikes concentrate almost entirely on the first-appearance issues rather than on run material like this one.

Buyers are principally run collectors completing the 1994-96 series, Crossing completists assembling the crossover in reading order, and a small number of registry-minded submitters chasing top-census copies of scarce modern non-keys. Low-grade copies have essentially no premium and trade as reading stock; mid-grade sits at or near cover price and is best moved in bundles. The only bracket with real spread is certified Near Mint/Mint, where thin supply rather than demand sets the number, and where patience matters more than pricing precision. Sellers should expect long hold times on slabs and quick, low-margin turnover on raw.