A comic found in an attic has just become the most expensive comic of all time. A copy of Superman No. 1, the 1939 issue that introduced the Man of Steel in his first solo title and astonishingly in near pristine condition, sold for $9.12 million Thursday at an auction run by Heritage. That price handily beats the previous record, set only in 2024, when Action Comics No. 1, the comic that first introduced the Kryptonian hero to the world, sold for $6 million. Before that, a copy of Superman No. 1 held the record with a sale of $5.3 million in 2022 while a copy of 1962’s Amazing Fantasy No. 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, sold for $3.6 million in 2021. While comic book prices have not been climbing as fast or as far as they had in the early 2020s – in fact, a lot of comic prices have fallen by a third or more in some cases – this copy has several factors going for it, according to those in the rare comic book world. For a comic being 86 years old, it is in excellent condition, and it graded a 9.0 out of 10 by the Certified Guaranty Company, the leading third-party grading service for comic books. Then there is the attic backstory, which enhances the comic’s pedigree. The comic was discovered by three brothers in the attic of their late mother’s house, in a box of yellowed newspaper clippings. Their mother bought the comic, along with several others, when she was nine and living in Depression-era San Francisco. Over the years, the mother occasionally insisted to her sons that she had “rare comics somewhere.” But she could never remember where, and the boys assumed it was just a family legend. The mother died just before the pandemic, and the house sat untouched until the brothers were ready to go through it earlier this year.