January 13, 2017
2005
[ Note: for this year, a newsstand rarity estimate of 2% exists 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 2005, 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 2005, 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 2005. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 2005, top 50 D.C. comics of 2005, and more key comic books of 2005 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 2005:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 1,948 | All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder #1 | 9/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 2. | 1,754 | Walking Dead #19 | 6/05 | Image Comics |
| 3. | 1,248 | Ultimate Spider-Man 79 Wizard World 2005 Con Editi | 9/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 4. | 930 | New Avengers 1 Variant Cover | 1/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 5. | 916 | Supergirl #1 | 10/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 6. | 871 | New Avengers 1 Quesada Variant Cover | 1/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 7. | 860 | Infinite Crisis #1 | 12/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 8. | 727 | Michael Turner’s Soulfire: Dying of the Light 3 Wi | 11/05 | Aspen |
| 9. | 722 | Green Lantern #1 | 7/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 10. | 642 | New Avengers #1 | 1/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 11. | 604 | X-Men 175 Wizard World 2005 Con Edition | 2005 | Marvel Comics |
| 12. | 593 | X-23 1 Limited Edition | 4/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 13. | 532 | Wolverine v3 #26 Limited Edition | 5/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 14. | 530 | X-23 #1 | 3/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 15. | 492 | Ultimate Iron Man #1 | 5/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 16. | 491 | All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder 1 Retailer | 9/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 17. | 475 | New Avengers 2 Variant Cover | 2/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 18. | 454 | Fantastic Four 527 Wizard World 2005 Con Edition | 2005 | Marvel Comics |
| 19. | 448 | New Avengers 4 Variant Cover | 4/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 20. | 436 | New Avengers 3 Variant Cover | 3/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 21. | 413 | Captain America #6 | 6/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 22. | 385 | Young Avengers 1 Wizard World 2005 Con Edition | 4/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 23. | 375 | Batman #635 | 2/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 24. | 360 | Captain America 6 Variant Edition | 6/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 25. | 351 | Supergirl 1 Second Printing | 10/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 26. | 341 | JSA: Classified #1 | 9/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 27. | 338 | Ghost Rider 1 Retailer Incentive Edition | 11/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 28. | 338 | All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder #2 | 11/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 29. | 334 | Walking Dead #15 | 1/05 | Image Comics |
| 30. | 331 | Michael Turner’s Soulfire: Dying of the Light 1 Wi | 9/05 | Aspen |
| 31. | 323 | Michael Turner’s Fathom v2 #0 Wizard World 2005 Co | 4/05 | Aspen |
| 32. | 306 | Grimm Fairy Tales #1 | 6/05 | Zenescope Entertainment |
| 33. | 305 | New Avengers #4 | 4/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 34. | 305 | Justice #1 | 10/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 35. | 305 | Michael Turner’s Fathom v2 #1 Wizard World VIP Edi | 7/05 | Aspen |
| 36. | 293 | New Avengers 5 Variant Cover | 5/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 37. | 284 | Young Avengers #1 | 4/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 38. | 281 | New Avengers 1 Second Printing | 1/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 39. | 272 | House of M 1 Quesada Variant Cover | 8/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 40. | 271 | Ultimates 2 1 Variant Cover | 2/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 41. | 265 | Walking Dead #16 | 2/05 | Image Comics |
| 42. | 264 | Michael Turner’s Fathom v2 #4 Wizard World VIP Edi | 11/05 | Aspen |
| 43. | 259 | DC Countdown #1 | 5/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 44. | 259 | Captain America #1 | 1/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 45. | 251 | House of M 1 Limited Edition | 8/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 46. | 249 | Wonder Woman #219 | 9/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 47. | 244 | Infinite Crisis 1 Retailer Incentive Edition | 12/05 | D.C. Comics |
| 48. | 243 | Wizard Ace Edition: Ultimate Spider-Man #1 | 2005 | Marvel-Wizard Pub. |
| 49. | 243 | Ultimate Iron Man 1 Variant Cover | 5/05 | Marvel Comics |
| 50. | 239 | Walking Dead #17 | 3/05 | Image Comics |
| « 2004 | 2006 » | |||
More Key Comics From 2005
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 2005, top 50 D.C. comics of 2005, more key comic books of 2005 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 2005, 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 