1941 Captain America Comics #3 CGC VG/FN 5.0

An early Golden Age Captain America issue with a Red Skull cover by Alex Schomburg, containing 18-year-old Stan Lee's first published work.

Captain America Comics #3, dated May 1941, is published by Timely, the company that would become Marvel. The Captain America stories are by the character’s creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and the issue also includes a Tuk, Cave-boy story drawn by Mac Raboy.

The issue also contains “Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge,” a two-page text story by Stan Lee. It was the first time he used the name Stan Lee, and the story is also credited with introducing Captain America’s ricocheting shield throw. A shield made for Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) is offered as Lot 3 in Superheroes: An Auction of Marvel Film Props. Before the end of 1941 Lee had become editor at Timely, and in the 1960s he co-created the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men with Jack Kirby, and Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Steve Ditko. He later became Marvel’s publisher, and he made cameo appearances in many of the Marvel films, the last of them in Avengers: Endgame in 2019. A hammer made for that film is offered as Lot 5 in Superheroes: An Auction of Marvel Film Props.

Seven examples have achieved Very Good/Fine 5.0 at CGC, with thirty graded higher.

Population report accurate at the time of listing and subject to change.