STRANGE TALES #142

Cover shows moderate wear consistent with a well-read Silver Age book: soft, rounded corners, noticeable spine stress with visible wear lines/ticks along the spine edge, and light surface scuffing throughout the black background areas that reveals some color chipping. There is a small ink annotation ('Dec') near the top of the logo and general handling wear/soiling at the edges, with the book currently housed in a protective sleeve. Interior pages and back cover were not visible for assessment, so grade is based solely on the front cover's surface and edge condition.

Strange Tales #142 arrived in March 1966 as part of the title's dual-feature format, pairing a Doctor Strange adventure with a Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. story, the espionage series that had launched Marvel's spy-fiction answer to the Bond and U.N.C.L.E. craze a few months earlier. The issue reflects Marvel's mid-Silver Age house style, with Stan Lee scripting across both features and veteran artists handling the visuals during the period before Jim Steranko's celebrated run redefined the Fury strip. It sits within a busy, well-remembered stretch of the series but does not itself carry a first appearance, origin, or other event typically cited by price guides.

Market activity is consistent with a solid but unspectacular mid-run Silver Age anthology title: certified sales are frequent through the mid and high grades, with values climbing steeply above 9.0 as the population of pristine copies thins sharply. The census shows healthy raw distribution across low-to-mid grades and a pronounced scarcity at the top end, with only a handful of 9.4s and single copies reported at 9.6 and 9.8, driving outsized premiums for top-census examples relative to the broader run of the book.

This is a collector's book for Strange Tales completists, Doctor Strange and Nick Fury character collectors, and Silver Age Marvel run-builders rather than a speculative key. Lower and mid grades trade as reading and run-filling copies at modest, stable prices, while the very top of the census commands a disproportionate premium driven by rarity rather than narrative importance, and any future 9.8 sale would likely set the benchmark for the grade.