January 13, 2017
1970
There are two main ways I’ve seen online lists of key comics presented by year: (1) personalized lists based upon judgment calls of what is “key” (thereby omitting any comics the particular writer doesn’t happen to consider key — or doesn’t know about), and (2) lists based upon high sales price data (also a flawed method because high prices can just as easily be caused by a non-key book happening to grade a 10 at CGC).
The top 50 list you’re about to see is neither of those other types.
Instead, to briefly repeat the introduction I gave on the main 1970’s page, the list I’m about to present is essentially “crowd-sourced”… by the crowd of collectors sending comics to CGC. All I’ve done here is to rank the universe of comic books published in 1970, according to how many copies of each issue have passed through CGC’s doors to date to reveal the comics with the highest census counts — that’s it!
This exercise should “tease out” a very interesting list of important and/or key comics from 1970, but this will not necessarily be an all-encompassing list (if very few copies were created for a given key, for example, that restricted supply could keep the count of CGC submissions low even though the comic is very important — this exercise will unfortunately see such comics sort themselves off of the bottom through no fault of their own). So essentially, you should think of this list as just one more tool in your tool-belt of researching key comics from 1970. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 1970, top 50 D.C. comics of 1970, and more key comic books of 1970 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 1970:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 2,734 | Conan the Barbarian #1 | 10/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 2. | 1,535 | Green Lantern #76 | 4/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 3. | 806 | Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 | 12/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 4. | 697 | Batman #227 | 12/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 5. | 668 | Amazing Spider-Man #91 | 12/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 6. | 638 | Fantastic Four #100 | 7/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 7. | 638 | Silver Surfer #14 | 3/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 8. | 576 | Amazing Spider-Man #90 | 11/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 9. | 544 | Conan the Barbarian #2 | 12/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 10. | 512 | Detective Comics #400 | 6/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 11. | 498 | Amazing Spider-Man #86 | 7/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 12. | 485 | Amazing Adventures #1 | 8/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 13. | 483 | Amazing Spider-Man #81 | 2/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 14. | 452 | Amazing Spider-Man #82 | 3/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 15. | 441 | Amazing Spider-Man #88 | 9/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 16. | 439 | Amazing Spider-Man #84 | 5/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 17. | 438 | Amazing Spider-Man #83 | 4/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 18. | 403 | Amazing Spider-Man #87 | 8/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 19. | 380 | Amazing Spider-Man #85 | 6/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 20. | 379 | X-Men #65 | 2/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 21. | 377 | Amazing Spider-Man #80 | 1/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 22. | 375 | Amazing Spider-Man #89 | 10/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 23. | 366 | X-Men Annual #1 | 12/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 24. | 356 | X-Men #66 | 3/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 25. | 346 | Silver Surfer #18 | 9/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 26. | 344 | X-Men #64 | 1/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 27. | 329 | Silver Surfer #12 | 1/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 28. | 329 | Silver Surfer #15 | 4/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 29. | 309 | Silver Surfer #17 | 6/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 30. | 293 | Silver Surfer #16 | 5/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 31. | 286 | Avengers #83 | 12/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 32. | 261 | Green Lantern #77 | 6/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 33. | 260 | Silver Surfer #13 | 2/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 34. | 253 | Green Lantern #80 | 10/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 35. | 249 | Astonishing Tales #1 | 8/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 36. | 249 | Fantastic Four #97 | 4/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 37. | 236 | Batman #222 | 6/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 38. | 224 | Fantastic Four #95 | 2/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 39. | 213 | Green Lantern #81 | 12/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 40. | 209 | Green Lantern #78 | 7/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 41. | 207 | Fantastic Four #94 | 1/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 42. | 205 | Fantastic Four #98 | 5/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 43. | 191 | World’s Finest Comics #199 | 12/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 44. | 187 | Avengers #81 | 10/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 45. | 186 | Fantastic Four #99 | 6/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 46. | 181 | Detective Comics #403 | 9/70 | D.C. Comics |
| 47. | 177 | Thor #180 | 9/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 48. | 175 | Avengers #78 | 7/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 49. | 175 | X-Men #67 | 12/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 50. | 173 | Avengers #80 | 9/70 | Marvel Comics |
| 1971 » | ||||
More Key Comics From 1970
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 1970, top 50 D.C. comics of 1970, more key comic books of 1970 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 1970, or jump to this list of important comics from the 1970s. Or explore Lists of Key Comic Books by Year. Or jump to my blog’s home page.
Happy Collecting! 🙂
Rare Comics 