The controversy over Immortal Hulk #43's alleged anti-Semitic imagery has led to a surprisingly robust sales market for copies of the first edition copies of the issue after Marvel announced that it would be recalling the issue and replacing it with edited versions of the comic.
A day after the book was released, Marvel sent retailers a notice stating, "Marvel is correcting and reprinting the main and variant editions of Immortal Hulk #43, originally on sale 2/3. Requests to return for exchange on Immortal Hulk #43 with these corrected versions may be made starting today." This notice quickly led to a sales frenzy on eBay, with copies initially going for over $30 after the recall announcement. Prices settled after that, but of the three covers for the issue, all three covers have been routinely selling on eBay for roughly $20 since Thursday.
In the first edition of Immortal Hulk #43, artist Joe Bennett drew Bruce Banner (with one of the various Hulk personalities, "Joe Fixit," in control of his body) buying some jewelry with a stolen credit card. The name of the store, written in reverse in the store's window, was "Cronemberg's Jewery" (with the Y blocked out by the store clerk) with a Star of David, a noted Jewish symbol, in the window.
Bennett explained that he just misspelled Jewelry while writing it backwards (Bennett misspelled a number of other words in the same issue in store windows, writing in reverse). As to the Star of David display, he noted on Facebook, "I have no excuse for how I depicted the Star of David. I failed to understand this troubling and offensive stereotype, and after listening to you all, I now understand my mistake. This was wrong, offensive, and hurtful in many ways. This is a mistake I must own, and I am sorry to everyone who I hurt by this. I am working with Marvel to correct this, and I am using this lesson to reflect on how I approach my stories and my work."
A similar spike in sales on eBay occurred when artist Ardian Syaf featured anti-Semitic hidden messages in X-Men Gold #1 back in 2017 and Marvel recalled the issue. That issue, though, was a highly-publicized first issue of an X-Men title, so there were a lot more of those first editions available. Today, that controversial X-Men issue goes for less than $7. The 2018 Batman: Damned controversy (with Batman's silhouetted penis visible in the comic) went a step further, as DC did not issue corrected replacements, making Batman: Damned #1 especially valuable on the back issue market, as unlike X-Men Gold and Immortal Hulk, they are the only available versions of Batman: Damned #1.
Source: eBay
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