Doctor Strange's first appearance — Strange Tales #110 (July 1963, Stan Lee & Steve Ditko) — reached $150,000 in CGC 9.6 at Heritage Auctions in April 2024, up from roughly $60,000 for an equivalent copy in 2016. Our eBay estimation tool does not index the Strange Tales, Doctor Strange, or Marvel Premiere series — no eBay median from that tool is cited in this guide.
Born in Strange Tales #110 in July 1963, Stephen Strange is one of Marvel's most iconic Silver Age characters. A brilliant surgeon turned Sorcerer Supreme after a career-ending car accident, he was conceived by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko in a psychedelic, cosmological register unlike anything else in superhero comics at the time. For decades, his key issues remained accessible — a niche character next to the Batman, Spider-Man, and X-Men giants. The MCU trilogy starring Benedict Cumberbatch changed everything.
This guide sticks to the verifiable: documented auction records (Heritage Auctions, Sell My Comic Books), official box office figures, and established publishing facts. Where no reliable public figure exists, we stay qualitative. Since our eBay tool does not index the relevant series, no eBay medians are presented.
Doctor Strange key issues: Silver Age, Bronze Age, modern era
Doctor Strange's publishing history spans six decades. The table below lists the major keys with documented market data. Our eBay tool covers none of these series.
| Issue | Significance | eBay tool | Documented market data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strange Tales #110 (Jul. 1963) | 1st appearance of Doctor Strange (Silver Age) | Series not indexed — no median available | CGC 9.6: ~$60,000 (2016) → $150,000 (Heritage, Apr. 2024) · CGC 9.4: ~$55,200 (2020), ~$48,000 (2021) · CGC 9.2: ~$42,500 (2022) · Sell My Comic Books / Heritage Auctions |
| Strange Tales #115 (Dec. 1963) | Origin of Doctor Strange (Silver Age) | Series not indexed — no median available | CGC 9.6: $16,730 (Heritage, Nov. 2017) — active market, qualitatively high value |
| Doctor Strange #169 (Jun. 1968) | First issue of the first solo series (late Silver Age) | Series not indexed — no median available | Active market; no public auction record found in sources consulted |
| Marvel Premiere #3 (Jul. 1972) | Bronze Age revival (Stan Lee & Barry Windsor-Smith) | Series not indexed — no median available | Active market in high grade; no public record figure found |
Sources: Heritage Auctions, Sell My Comic Books (2024 market update). This site's eBay tool does not cover the Strange Tales, Doctor Strange, or Marvel Premiere series.
Strange Tales #110 (1963): the Sorcerer Supreme's grail
Published in July 1963, Strange Tales #110 is the cornerstone of any Doctor Strange collection. The cover is by Jack Kirby (with inking by Dick Ayers), but it is Steve Ditko who draws the eight-page story titled "Dr. Strange, Master of Black Magic!" from a script by Stan Lee. Strange ventures into a dream dimension to rescue a patient trapped by Nightmare — the first of the character's great adversaries. The Ancient One, Wong, and Nightmare all make their first appearances in this same issue.
Original print-run copies from 1963 were not preserved in large numbers: Silver Age comics were bought to be read, not collected. CGC 9.6 copies are therefore extremely scarce. In 2016, one such copy sold for roughly $60,000 at Heritage Auctions — already a milestone for the title at the time. In April 2024, another CGC 9.6 example reached $150,000 at Heritage Auctions, reflecting sustained demand across a decade of MCU adaptations. Even at intermediate grades, prices climbed: a CGC 9.4 sold for approximately $55,200 in 2020 and $48,000 in 2021; a CGC 9.2 changed hands at around $42,500 in 2022, according to data compiled by Sell My Comic Books.
Three MCU films and their effect on demand
Three major releases brought Doctor Strange into the mainstream spotlight in succession. Doctor Strange (2016), directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, grossed $677.8 million worldwide — including $232.6 million in the United States. The casting announcement and the film's release coincided with the first documented wave of price increases for Strange Tales #110: Sell My Comic Books notes that prices in the mid-2010s recalled the heady days of the speculator boom for Silver Age keys.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) then placed Doctor Strange at the centre of the highest-grossing Sony Pictures film ever, with $1.921 billion in worldwide receipts. Though centred on Spider-Man, the film positions Strange as a co-protagonist — and each appearance in a billion-dollar blockbuster renews pressure on first-appearance keys. Finally, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), directed by Sam Raimi, totalled $955.8 million worldwide. Taken together, these three films represent more than $3.5 billion in box office revenue, ranking Doctor Strange among the most commercially successful solo franchises in the MCU.
The market effect described by specialists (Sell My Comic Books, GoCollect) is real but nuanced: demand spikes coincide with releases, then the market corrects. In high grade — CGC 9.4 and above — Strange Tales #110 is, in the words of Sell My Comic Books, "notoriously tough" to find, which makes each high-grade copy structurally scarce and less exposed to post-film corrections than more common keys.
Strange Tales #115 (1963) and the other Silver Age keys
Strange Tales #115 (December 1963) is the second indispensable publishing milestone: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko retell for the first time the complete origin of Stephen Strange — the car accident that destroys his surgeon's hands, the journey to Asia in search of a mystical healer, and the encounter with the Ancient One. This foundational story is to Doctor Strange what Amazing Fantasy #15 is to Spider-Man. A CGC 9.6 copy reached $16,730 at Heritage Auctions in November 2017; the value for high-grade examples remains qualitatively elevated, though no more recent record has been found in the sources consulted.
Since Strange Tales is an anthology title — it also featured the Human Torch and, later, Nick Fury — the Doctor Strange issues to track are specifically #110 through #168. The title then became Doctor Strange #169 in June 1968, the character's first solo issue, continuing the series numbering. The Bronze Age revival came with Marvel Premiere #3 (July 1972, Stan Lee and Barry Windsor-Smith), followed by Doctor Strange vol. 2 #1 (1974, Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner). These issues trade actively on the secondary market with no spectacular documented record to report at this time.
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