January 13, 2017
1992 — Image Comics bursts onto the scene!
[ Note: newsstand rarity estimates show that newsstand comics are dramatically more rare than direct edition comics by this point in time. 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 ]
The year 1992 saw the emergence of Image Comics onto the scene. Some concluded Image was exclusively direct edition, but as it turns out, under the mountain of direct edition copies they sold, there was also a small sliver of copies that were distributed on newsstands — 1% by one insider’s estimate. You’ll see a lot of CGC-recognized newsstand variants from among Image’s comics, as they quite often were manufactured differently, causing CGC to break them out as distinct from their direct edition counter-parts.
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 1990’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 1992, 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 1992, 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 1992. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 1992, top 50 D.C. comics of 1992, and more key comic books of 1992 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 1992:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 5,855 | Amazing Spider-Man #361 Rare CGC-recognized newsstand cover price variant is confirmed to exist |
4/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 2. | 5,599 | Spawn #1 | 5/92 | Image Comics |
| 3. | 2,484 | Superman: The Man of Steel #18 | 12/92 | D.C. Comics |
| 4. | 1,991 | Amazing Spider-Man #362 | 5/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 5. | 1,470 | Amazing Spider-Man #363 | 6/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 6. | 1,458 | Rai #0 | 11/92 | Valiant |
| 7. | 1,254 | Harbinger #1 | 1/92 | Valiant |
| 8. | 1,136 | X-Men #4 | 1/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 9. | 1,084 | X-Force #11 Rare CGC-recognized newsstand cover price variant is confirmed to exist |
6/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 10. | 1,037 | Eternal Warrior #4 | 11/92 | Valiant |
| 11. | 964 | X-O Manowar #1 | 2/92 | Valiant |
| 12. | 915 | Amazing Spider-Man #365 | 8/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 13. | 806 | Iron Man #282 | 7/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 14. | 622 | Spawn #2 | 6/92 | Image Comics |
| 15. | 621 | Solar, Man of the Atom #10 | 6/92 | Valiant |
| 16. | 602 | Spider-Man 2099 #1 | 11/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 17. | 601 | Harbinger 0 Pink Variant | 1992 | Valiant |
| 18. | 595 | Wolverine #50 | 1/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 19. | 554 | Superman: The Man of Steel #17 | 11/92 | D.C. Comics |
| 20. | 546 | Shadowman #1 | 5/92 | Valiant |
| 21. | 465 | Rai #1 | 3/92 | Valiant |
| 22. | 417 | Magnus Robot Fighter #12 | 5/92 | Valiant |
| 23. | 415 | Spawn #4 | 9/92 | Image Comics |
| 24. | 411 | Infinity War #1 | 6/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 25. | 410 | Punisher: War Zone #1 | 3/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 26. | 397 | Rai #3 | 5/92 | Valiant |
| 27. | 385 | Batman: Sword of Azrael #1 | 10/92 | D.C. Comics |
| 28. | 380 | Archer & Armstrong #0 | 7/92 | Valiant |
| 29. | 356 | WildC.A.T.S. #1 Rare CGC-recognized newsstand variant is confirmed to exist |
8/92 | Image Comics |
| 30. | 355 | Spider-Man #26 | 9/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 31. | 347 | Marvel Super-Heroes v2 #8 | 1/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 32. | 344 | Rai #4 | 6/92 | Valiant |
| 33. | 333 | Spawn #3 | 8/92 | Image Comics |
| 34. | 329 | Shadowman #8 | 12/92 | Valiant |
| 35. | 316 | X-O Manowar #4 | 5/92 | Valiant |
| 36. | 313 | Superman #74 | 12/92 | D.C. Comics |
| 37. | 296 | Amazing Spider-Man 361 Second Printing | 4/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 38. | 270 | X-Men #5 | 2/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 39. | 262 | Spider-Man Special Edition #1 | 12/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 40. | 258 | Adventures of Superman #497 | 12/92 | D.C. Comics |
| 41. | 254 | Unity 1 Gold Edition | 10/92 | Valiant |
| 42. | 252 | Unity 0 Red Logo Variant | 8/92 | Valiant |
| 43. | 249 | Uncanny X-Men #284 | 1/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 44. | 242 | Magnus Robot Fighter 0 Mail-order Edition | 1992 | Valiant |
| 45. | 241 | Harbinger #2 | 2/92 | Valiant |
| 46. | 239 | Magnus Robot Fighter #0 | 1992 | Valiant |
| 47. | 236 | Action Comics #684 | 12/92 | D.C. Comics |
| 48. | 232 | Eternal Warrior 1 Gold Edition | 8/92 | Valiant |
| 49. | 223 | Uncanny X-Men #288 | 5/92 | Marvel Comics |
| 50. | 217 | Youngblood #1 | 4/92 | Image Comics |
| « 1991 | 1993 » | |||
More Key Comics From 1992
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 1992, top 50 D.C. comics of 1992, more key comic books of 1992 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 1992, or jump to this list of important comics from the 1990s. Or explore Lists of Key Comic Books by Year. Or jump to my blog’s home page.
Happy Collecting! 🙂
