January 13, 2017
1988 — DC’s 1980’s newsstand cover price variant window closes!
[ Note: a newsstand rarity estimate of 30% exists for the prior year for Marvel. If you are not already in-the-know about the difference between newsstand and direct edition versions see the following: Comic Book Newsstand Editions: Understanding The Difference ]
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 1980’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 1988, 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 1988, 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 1988. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 1988, top 50 D.C. comics of 1988, and more key comic books of 1988 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 1988:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 12,690 | Amazing Spider-Man #300 | 5/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 2. | 7,108 | Wolverine #1 | 11/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 3. | 4,142 | Batman: The Killing Joke #nn | 1988 | D.C. Comics |
| 4. | 3,997 | Amazing Spider-Man #298 | 3/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 5. | 3,794 | Incredible Hulk #340 | 2/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 6. | 3,011 | Amazing Spider-Man #299 | 4/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 7. | 2,060 | X-Factor #24 | 1/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 8. | 1,344 | Amazing Spider-Man #301 | 6/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 9. | 1,089 | Wolverine #2 | 12/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 10. | 989 | Batman #428 | 12/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 11. | 702 | Miracleman #15 | 11/88 | Eclipse |
| 12. | 623 | Batman #426 | 12/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 13. | 587 | Amazing Spider-Man #303 | 8/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 14. | 581 | Amazing Spider-Man #306 | 10/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 15. | 577 | Hellblazer #1 | 1/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 16. | 560 | Action Comics #1 | 1988 | D.C. Comics |
| 17. | 528 | Batman #427 | 12/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 18. | 460 | Amazing Spider-Man #305 | 9/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 19. | 457 | Punisher War Journal #1 | 11/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 20. | 416 | V for Vendetta #1 | 9/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 21. | 387 | Amazing Spider-Man #307 | 10/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 22. | 387 | Amazing Spider-Man #302 | 7/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 23. | 376 | Amazing Spider-Man #304 | 9/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 24. | 374 | Batman: The Cult #1 | 1988 | D.C. Comics |
| 25. | 364 | Amazing Spider-Man #310 | 12/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 26. | 362 | Marvel Comics Presents #1 | 9/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 27. | 335 | Amazing Spider-Man #309 | 11/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 28. | 306 | Amazing Spider-Man #308 | 11/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 29. | 289 | Excalibur #1 | 10/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 30. | 289 | Amazing Spider-Man #297 | 2/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 31. | 275 | Daredevil #254 | 5/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 32. | 239 | Batman #423 Rare CGC-recognized newsstand cover price variant is confirmed to exist |
9/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 33. | 230 | Uncanny X-Men #234 | 9/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 34. | 229 | Akira #1 | 9/88 | Marvel/Epic Comics |
| 35. | 215 | Amazing Spider-Man Annual #22 | 1988 | Marvel Comics |
| 36. | 209 | Punisher #10 | 8/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 37. | 203 | Green Arrow #1 | 2/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 38. | 190 | The Tick #1 | 6/88 | New England Comics |
| 39. | 185 | Uncanny X-Men #228 | 4/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 40. | 176 | Uncanny X-Men #227 | 3/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 41. | 176 | Amazing Spider-Man #296 | 1/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 42. | 164 | Daredevil #257 | 8/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 43. | 161 | Batman #417 | 3/88 | D.C. Comics |
| 44. | 155 | Batman: The Cult #2 | 1988 | D.C. Comics |
| 45. | 152 | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1 Rare CGC-recognized cover price variant is confirmed to exist |
8/88 | Archie Publications |
| 46. | 149 | Uncanny X-Men #232 | 8/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 47. | 149 | Miracleman #14 | 4/88 | Eclipse |
| 48. | 147 | Aliens #1 | 5/88 | Dark Horse Comics |
| 49. | 145 | Uncanny X-Men #225 | 1/88 | Marvel Comics |
| 50. | 144 | Uncanny X-Men #239 | 12/88 | Marvel Comics |
| « 1987 | 1989 » | |||
More Key Comics From 1988
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 1988, top 50 D.C. comics of 1988, more key comic books of 1988 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 1988, or jump to this list of important comics from the 1980s. Or explore Lists of Key Comic Books by Year. Or jump to my blog’s home page.
Happy Collecting! 🙂
Rare Comics 