THE GREEN HORNET #4

Cover shows strong gloss and vibrant color with sharp corners and no visible creases or spine stress. There is minor edge wear at the top right corner and slight softening along the top edge, with a small mark near the top edge. No tears, stains, or writing are visible on the front cover. Interior and back cover were not assessed, which limits the grade to sight-unseen estimate.

NOW Comics launched its Green Hornet revival in 1989 with an ambitious plan: a single continuity linking every incarnation of the character from the 1930s radio serials through a modern-day successor. Issue #4, written by Ron Fortier with pencils by Jeff Butler and inks by David Mowry, advances that generational structure through the Reid and Kato family lines, bringing Britt Reid II, Lenore Case, and the next wave of heirs into the succession. The draw for most collectors is the painted cover by Steve Rude, whose work on the early issues of this run remains the most frequently cited artistic element of the series and the reason individual copies surface in dealer stock at all.

Market behavior here is typical of late Copper Age independent licensing books: print runs were adequate to demand, high-grade copies survived in quantity because the title sold largely to direct-market collectors who bagged them immediately, and pricing consequently sits at or near bulk levels across the raw spectrum. Movement happens mostly through complete or partial runs rather than single-issue sales, and the spread between a well-worn copy and a sharp near-mint one is narrow in absolute dollars. Certified examples are scarce not because the book is rare but because the economics of grading rarely justify it; when a slab does appear, the Rude cover credit carries most of the weight.

The buyer profile is straightforward: Green Hornet completists assembling the NOW continuity, Steve Rude cover collectors, and run builders filling gaps. Raw copies in any presentable grade trade quickly at modest prices, which makes this a run-fill book rather than a speculative hold. A registry-quality certified copy is the only configuration with meaningful upside, and that upside depends on the thin census staying thin.