Dallas - A rare 78-year-old comic book with the first-ever Superman cover was sold at an auction in Texas on Thursday for nearly $1 million (about R13.6m)), the auction house said.
"Action Comic #1" sold for $956 000, well above its expected selling price of $750 000, Heritage Auctions in Dallas said.
The comic is "the holy-grail of comic collecting," Heritage Auctions said in its website listing.
The well-preserved comic book, published in 1938, depicts Superman on the cover lifting a green car into the air while wearing tights and a red cape.
The comic cost 10 cents in 1938, and there are thought to be only around 100 copies left in existence, the auction house said.
It belonged to an American collector who bought it for $26 000 in the 1990s.
The new buyer wished to remain anonymous, a Heritage Auctions spokesman told dpa.
DPA