January 13, 2017
2006
[ Note: for the year prior, 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 2006, 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 2006, 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 2006. You can also drill down and see the top 50 Marvel comics of 2006, top 50 D.C. comics of 2006, and more key comic books of 2006 from other publishers.
Key Comics From 2006:
(Census data as of year-end 2016)
| Rank | CGC Count | Issue | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 2,262 | Civil War #1 | 7/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 2. | 1,504 | Amazing Spider-Man #529 | 4/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 3. | 1,449 | Walking Dead #27 | 4/06 | Image Comics |
| 4. | 1,184 | Civil War 3 Variant Cover | 9/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 5. | 1,174 | Wolverine: Origins 1 Wizard World 2006 Con Edition | 6/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 6. | 1,125 | Wolverine: Origins 6 Wizard World 2006 Con Edition | 11/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 7. | 1,011 | Civil War 1 Variant Cover | 7/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 8. | 999 | Civil War 1 Aspen Variant Cover | 7/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 9. | 980 | Civil War: Front Line 1 Wizard World 2006 Con Edit | 8/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 10. | 939 | Civil War 1 Sketch Cover | 7/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 11. | 923 | Wolverine: Origins 1 Variant Edition | 6/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 12. | 850 | Civil War #2 | 8/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 13. | 784 | Ultimate Extinction 1 Wizard World 2006 Con Editio | 3/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 14. | 780 | Marvel Zombies #1 | 2/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 15. | 773 | Wolverine: Origins 2 Canadian Variant | 7/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 16. | 768 | Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #1 | 2/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 17. | 682 | Wolverine: Origins #1 | 6/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 18. | 665 | Civil War 2 Variant Cover | 8/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 19. | 656 | All-Star Superman 1 Variant Cover | 1/06 | D.C. Comics |
| 20. | 604 | Civil War 3 Sketch Cover | 9/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 21. | 602 | Civil War 2 Second Printing | 8/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 22. | 579 | Civil War #3 | 9/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 23. | 569 | Civil War 4 Variant Cover | 10/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 24. | 569 | Wolverine: Origins 1 Director’s Cut Edition | 2006 | Marvel Comics |
| 25. | 559 | Civil War #5 | 11/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 26. | 553 | Civil War 2 Sketch Cover | 8/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 27. | 549 | Civil War #4 | 10/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 28. | 479 | Civil War #6 | 12/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 29. | 459 | Ultimate Spider-Man #100 | 11/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 30. | 447 | Marvel Zombies 1 Variant Edition | 2/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 31. | 428 | Walking Dead #33 | 12/06 | Image Comics |
| 32. | 426 | Civil War 5 Sketch Cover | 11/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 33. | 426 | Civil War: X-Men 1 Aspen Variant Cover | 9/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 34. | 419 | Moon Knight 1 Sketch Cover | 6/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 35. | 418 | Civil War 4 Sketch Cover | 10/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 36. | 416 | Civil War 5 Variant Cover | 11/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 37. | 367 | Justice League of America 1 Variant Cover | 10/06 | D.C. Comics |
| 38. | 349 | All-Star Superman #1 | 1/06 | D.C. Comics |
| 39. | 348 | Incredible Hulk #92 | 4/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 40. | 344 | Batman 655 Variant Cover | 9/06 | D.C. Comics |
| 41. | 344 | Wonder Woman #1 | 8/06 | D.C. Comics |
| 42. | 340 | Batman #655 | 9/06 | D.C. Comics |
| 43. | 329 | The Boys #1 | 10/06 | D.C./Wildstorm |
| 44. | 324 | Moon Knight #1 | 6/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 45. | 319 | Civil War 6 Variant Cover | 12/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 46. | 311 | Marvel Zombies #2 | 3/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 47. | 310 | Wolverine: Origins #2 | 7/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 48. | 300 | Marvel Zombies #5 | 6/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 49. | 298 | Marvel Zombies #3 | 4/06 | Marvel Comics |
| 50. | 295 | Captain America #14 | 4/06 | Marvel Comics |
| « 2005 | 2007 » | |||
More Key Comics From 2006
Also see: top 50 Marvel comics of 2006, top 50 D.C. comics of 2006, more key comic books of 2006 outside of Marvel and DC, all key comics from 2006, 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! 🙂
