January 13, 2017
2003
[ Note: in 1999 Marvel made a conscious decision to walk away from the newsstand model and a newsstand rarity estimate of 4.25% exists for this year for Marvel. If you are not already in-the-know about the difference between newsstand and direct edition comics 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 2000’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 2003, 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 2003, 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 2003. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 2003, top 50 D.C. comics of 2003, and more key comic books of 2003 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 2003:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 2,617 | Walking Dead #1 | 10/03 | Image Comics |
| 2. | 1,218 | Batman #612 | 4/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 3. | 1,185 | Walking Dead #2 | 11/03 | Image Comics |
| 4. | 1,032 | Superman/Batman #1 | 10/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 5. | 1,007 | Walking Dead #3 | 12/03 | Image Comics |
| 6. | 889 | Ultimate Spider-Man #33 | 2/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 7. | 857 | Amazing Spider-Man #500 | 12/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 8. | 854 | Batman 612 Second Printing | 4/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 9. | 700 | Donald Duck Adventures-Free Comic Book Day nn Gems | 5/03 | Gemstone |
| 10. | 662 | Invincible #1 | 1/03 | Image Comics |
| 11. | 630 | Wolverine v3 #1 | 7/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 12. | 552 | JLA/Avengers #1 | 9/03 | D.C.-Marvel |
| 13. | 533 | Superman/Batman 1 Retailer Incentive Edition | 10/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 14. | 502 | Batman 619 Variant Cover | 11/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 15. | 458 | Teen Titans #1 | 9/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 16. | 446 | Batman #614 | 6/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 17. | 439 | Teen Titans 1 Fourth Printing | 9/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 18. | 382 | Batman #613 | 5/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 19. | 366 | Ultimate War #1 | 2/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 20. | 358 | Batman #609 | 1/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 21. | 334 | Batman #610 | 2/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 22. | 333 | Marvel 1602 #1 | 11/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 23. | 312 | Ultimate Spider-Man #34 | 3/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 24. | 309 | Batman #615 | 7/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 25. | 300 | Runaways #1 | 7/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 26. | 292 | Ultimate Spider-Man #38 | 5/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 27. | 274 | Fantastic Four 500 Director’s Cut Edition | 9/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 28. | 264 | Ultimate Spider-Man #35 | 3/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 29. | 250 | Batman #616 | 8/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 30. | 248 | Amazing Spider-Man v2 #50 | 4/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 31. | 243 | Flash #197 | 6/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 32. | 237 | Avengers/JLA #2 | 10/03 | D.C.-Marvel |
| 33. | 233 | Batman #617 | 9/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 34. | 233 | Batman #611 | 3/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 35. | 231 | Batman #618 | 10/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 36. | 228 | Batman 619 Second Printing | 11/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 37. | 224 | JLA/Avengers #3 | 12/03 | D.C.-Marvel |
| 38. | 218 | Emma Frost #1 | 8/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 39. | 217 | Ultimate Spider-Man #36 | 4/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 40. | 210 | Mystique #1 | 6/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 41. | 206 | Ultimate Spider-Man #32 | 2/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 42. | 205 | Venom #1 | 6/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 43. | 193 | Ultimate Spider-Man #31 | 1/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 44. | 193 | Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra #1 | 1/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 45. | 190 | Batman #619 | 11/03 | D.C. Comics |
| 46. | 189 | Invincible 1 Limited Edition | 1/03 | Image Comics |
| 47. | 186 | Wizard Ace Edition: Amazing Spider-Man #1 | 1/03 | Marvel-Wizard Pub. |
| 48. | 184 | Ultimate Spider-Man #39 | 6/03 | Marvel Comics |
| 49. | 183 | Transformers: Generation 1 v2 #1 Retailer Incentiv | 4/03 | Dreamwave Productions |
| 50. | 182 | Spectacular Spider-Man #1 | 9/03 | Marvel Comics |
| « 2002 | 2004 » | |||
More Key Comics From 2003
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 2003, top 50 D.C. comics of 2003, more key comic books of 2003 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 2003, or jump to this list of important comics from the 2000s. Or explore Lists of Key Comic Books by Year. Or jump to my blog’s home page.
Happy Collecting! 🙂
Rare Comics 