STAR TREK #3

Cover shows strong gloss and bright colors with a visible UPC barcode indicating newsstand edition. There is a noticeable crease/wrinkle running diagonally near the ship's beam and some minor surface waviness in the black background, along with slight corner softness at the top corners. The book is housed in a protective sleeve, which limits full assessment of edges; interior and back cover were not evaluated. No major tears, stains, or color breaks are visible in this photo.

Star Trek #3 closes out Marvel's four-issue adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, scripted from Alan Dean Foster's novelization under Gene Roddenberry's oversight and edited by Jim Shooter. The interior art pairs Dave Cockrum's pencils with Klaus Janson's inks, a notable X-Men-adjacent creative team applied to the franchise's first ongoing comics tie-in, while Bob Wiacek supplies the newsstand cover and Marie Severin handles colors. The issue features the full bridge crew and supporting film cast, including Ilia and Commander Decker's love interest subplot carried over from the film, giving the book value as a snapshot of Trek's early comics history rather than as a source of any lasting first appearance.

Market data shows a book with a healthy CGC census of over ninety Universal copies but thin trading at the low and mid end, where sales are sparse to nonexistent below grade 8. Demand concentrates almost entirely at the top of the census, with 9.6 and 9.8 copies accounting for the bulk of recorded sales and driving nearly all measurable price movement; the 9.8 FMV of $200 reflects steady collector interest in pristine copies rather than any speculative surge. Raw copies in low and mid grade see negligible secondary-market activity, consistent with a high-print-run newsstand title from a licensed property rather than a scarce or historically pivotal comic.

This is a book for Star Trek completists and Bronze Age licensed-property collectors rather than speculative key-issue buyers. Raw copies in worn condition carry little more than nominal value, and even presentable mid-grade examples remain inexpensive commodities in the direct and online markets. The real premium sits with top-census CGC 9.8 slabs, where scarcity of true gem-mint newsstand survivors supports a modest but real price ceiling; buyers seeking this title should expect an inexpensive acquisition in any raw grade and a defined, if modest, cost of entry at the top of the certified population.