Rare Superman comic book fetches stellar price at auction

A rare copy of a Superman comic book that sold for a dime in 1939 has been purchased for 2.6 million dollars (£1.96m) in an auction.

The comic showing Superman leaping over tall buildings on the cover was sold to an anonymous buyer, according to ComicConnect com, an online auction company.

The seller, Mark Michaelson, bought the comic in 1979 from its original owner and kept it in a temperature-controlled safe.

Mr Michaelson, now semi-retired and living in Houston, paid his way through college by buying and selling comics.

The character created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster is a pioneer of the superhero genre, and comics featuring the Man of Steel have netted huge prices recently.

ComicConnect announced in April that a copy of Action Comics, the comic that introduced Superman in 1938, had sold for 3.25 million dollars (£2.45m).

“Now you look at the comic books and you go ‘superheroes everywhere.’ You look back in the ’30s, there was no such thing. So this was literally the first superhero,” said ComicConnect CEO Stephen Fishler.