Superman copy found in mum's attic is most valuable comic ever at US$9.12M

While cleaning out their late mother's California attic last Christmas, three brothers made a life-changing discovery under a pile of faded newspapers: one of the first Superman comics ever made.

An original copy of the June 1939 first edition on the Man of Steel's adventures, it was in a remarkably pristine condition.

Now it has become the highest-priced comic book ever sold, fetching US$9.12 million (£7m) at auction.

Texas-based Heritage Auctions, which hosted Thursday's sale, called it the "pinnacle of comic collecting".

The brothers found six comic books, including Superman #1, in the attic underneath a stack of newspapers inside a cardboard box and surrounded by cobwebs in 2024.

They waited a few months before contacting the auction house, but once they did, Heritage Auctions vice-president Lon Allen visited them in San Francisco within days.

Allen says the brothers, who have chosen to withhold their names, are "in their 50s and 60s, and their mom had always told them she had an expensive comics collection but never showed them.

Their mother had held on to the comic books since she and her brother bought them between the Great Depression and the beginning of World War Two, Heritage said.