The opening splash page from Tales of Suspense #39 became the most expensive original comic art ever sold at auction.
By Intelligent Collector Staff | July 10, 2026
The first page of Iron Man’s origin story became the new public benchmark for original comic art when Don Heck’s Tales of Suspense #39 Iron Man First Appearance Splash Page 1 Original Art sold for $3,875,000 at Heritage Auctions.
The March 1963 page introduced Tony Stark’s superhero persona to readers, placing it at the center of one of Marvel’s most important character launches. Heritage reported that six bidders remained active after the page crossed the $3 million mark, showing the level of competition that can form around true first-appearance artwork.
The result surpassed the prior comic-art auction record set by Mike Zeck’s Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #8 story page 25, the black-costume reveal page that sold at Heritage in 2022 for $3.36 million.
What makes the Iron Man splash especially powerful is the combination of image, character and moment. Major early Marvel pages rarely surface, and first-page art tied to a character who later became a global pop-culture franchise can move beyond comic-art collecting into a broader market for cultural history.
For sellers, this is one of the clearest examples of why Heritage is a best place to sell comic art at the highest level. When the work is historically central, visually strong and connected to a character with multigenerational demand, the right auction environment can turn a single page into a category record.
Source: Heritage Auctions press release (July 10, 2026).