Source: Boingboing.net
USA – Suspense Comics #3 from 1944 is one of the most infamous Golden Age comics, featuring an unforgettable Alex Schomburg cover. A copy is currently up for auction, with a high bid of $110,000. According to the Heritage Auctions listing, this particular copy “has never been offered for public sale before,” and while higher-grade copies exist, they would cost “the price of a house.” This VG 4.0 grade copy represents an accessible entry point for collectors, featuring “strong front-cover colors and an overall appearance” that makes it particularly appealing.
The cover’s striking imagery is vividly described in a Comic Connect listing for a different copy as “a Nazi/Bondage/Horror/War hybrid” showing “a hooded Nazi holding a sword, ready to plunge it into the heaving breast of a captive woman in peril. Meanwhile, spear in hand, her would-be savior stands poised to strike at the dastardly soldiers gathered around a fire, as one of them makes a futile attempt to protect their ill-gotten prize.”
The historical significance of this imagery runs deep. As Bleeding Cool explains, these hooded figures first emerged as symbols of terror in post-Civil War America. By 1871, following the Civil Rights Act, they were receiving intense media scrutiny. The article notes that “men joined vigilante groups and put on costumes and masks all across the country within the generation of the parents of the people who would become the foundational comic book creators of the Golden Age.”
The comic’s rarity is well-documented — the Heritage listing notes that it received a scarcity rating of “9” (“very rare”) in Ernst Gerber’s Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books.
