Superman #225

Apr 1970 · DC · 0.15 USD

📊 ~61,747 copies sold its debut month

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“The Secret of the Superman Impostor!”

About this Issue

Superman #225 sits at the precise hinge point between the Silver Age Weisinger era and the Bronze Age that would soon follow: it is one of the very last issues to appear under editor Mort Weisinger, who had shaped every corner of the Superman mythology since 1950 and would retire from DC by the end of 1970. The lead story's central conceit — an alien-engineered duplicate whose every physical sensation, including pain, bleeds directly back to the real Superman — belongs squarely to the imaginative, science-fiction-inflected storytelling style that defined the Weisinger decades. As such, the issue serves as a useful bookend for collectors and historians tracing where the old-school Superman ended and the more grounded, relevance-driven Bronze Age began just a handful of issues later with Superman #233.

writer Leo Dorfman · artist Curt Swan · inker George Roussos · letterer Milt Snapinn · cover Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (Fine) $6

CGC 9.8 · 1 in census $1,019

CGC 9.6 · 16 in census $272

CGC 9.4 · 13 in census $197

CGC 9.2 · 9 in census $112*

CGC 9.0 · 6 in census $58

CGC 8.5 · 4 in census $58*

Show all 15 grades ▾

CGC 8.0 none in existence

CGC 7.5 · 1 in census $58*

CGC 7.0 · 5 in census $47

CGC 6.5 none in existence

CGC 6.0 none in existence

CGC 5.5 · 1 in census $34*

CGC 5.0 · 2 in census $34

CGC 4.5 · 1 in census $31*

CGC 4.0 · 1 in census $30*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

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Raw / ungraded $30 1 listing

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History

The issue was written by Leo Dorfman, whom comics historian Mark Evanier identified as arguably the most prolific scripter for Superman during the 1960s, and penciled by Curt Swan with inks by George Roussos on interior pages and Murphy Anderson on the cover — the Swan-Anderson pairing that fans would nickname 'Swanderson' being one of the defining artistic identities of late Silver Age Superman. Mort Weisinger, sole editor of the Superman line since 1950, oversaw the issue during the final months of his tenure; when he stepped down at the end of 1970, DC spread his workload across multiple editors rather than hand it to a single successor, a structural change that visibly shifted the tone of the titles almost immediately.

Trivia · 7 facts

Cover-dated April 1970 (on-sale April 10, 1970); part of Superman Vol. 1, the original unbroken series launched in 1939.
Lead story title: 'The Secret of the Superman Impostor!' — an alien scientist named Vrol constructs a powerless physical double of Superman whose pain and physical sensations are transmitted to the real Man of Steel.
Characters appearing: Superman/Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, villain Vrol, the Superman copy, and a criminal identified as 'Limehouse Lew.'
Story credits: script by Leo Dorfman; pencils by Curt Swan; interior inks by George Roussos; letters by Milt Snapinn (per Paul Levitz via Comixscholars-L mailing list, 2016).
Cover credits: pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Murphy Anderson — one of the earliest issues of what fans would come to call the 'Swanderson' era of Superman covers.
Edited by Mort Weisinger, who had served as sole editor of the Superman family of titles from 1950; he retired from DC at the close of 1970 and was succeeded by Julius Schwartz.
No major key-issue designation (first appearance, landmark story change, or notable reprint) has been identified for this issue in key-issue databases; it is regarded as a representative late-Weisinger-era story rather than a milestone issue.