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50 free Hard Comic Book trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This hard comic book trivia quiz is for readers who know the difference between a cover date and an on-sale date. It asks what Siegel and Shuster were paid for the first Superman story, how big the print run of Action Comics #1 was, which words the 1954 Comics Code banned from titles, which Charlton characters Watchmen was originally going to star, and why the Pulitzer board gave Maus a special award rather than a regular one. It also crosses the Atlantic and the Pacific: Tintin's first newspaper, the magazine that launched Asterix, Osamu Tezuka's nickname and the Guinness record held by One Piece. Expect issue numbers, creator names, publishers, dates and sales figures, from the Yellow Kid in 1895 to Kamala Khan's Hugo Award. It is written for long-time collectors, comic shop staff and anyone who has read the histories. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and publisher records, and each question shows the sentence it rests on. All 50 questions are free with no sign-up. For an easier round, try our main Comic Books trivia page.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Action Comics #1 was cover-dated June 1938, but on what date that year was it actually published?
April 18
It was a 68-page anthology with eleven features; Superman took up only the first 13 pages. Roughly 100 copies are thought to survive.
Q 02What was the print run of Action Comics #1?
200,000
It sold out, but it took the publisher a while to work out that the Superman feature was why sales soon approached a million a month.
Q 03Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $10 a page for the first Superman story. What was their total fee?
$130
Contrary to legend, that fee was for the story, not the character; they signed the Superman copyright away for nothing in a separate March 1938 contract.
Q 04In what year did a single comic book first sell for $1 million at auction?
2010
A CGC 9.0 copy then sold on eBay in 2014 for just over $3.2 million, the first single comic to clear $3 million.
Q 05Which publisher put out Captain Marvel Adventures, the Golden Age's best-selling superhero title?
Fawcett
Fawcett's hero outsold Superman, which is partly why DC sued. Dell's licensed Disney comics outsold all the superheroes anyway.
Q 06Captain America Comics #1, showing Cap punching Hitler, went on sale on what date?
December 20, 1940
That was a full year before Pearl Harbor. It sold nearly a million copies, and a copy fetched $3.12 million at Heritage Auctions in 2022.
Q 07Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), the first title from Timely, introduced Namor and which android hero?
The Human Torch
Carl Burgos created the android Torch and Bill Everett created Namor. By 1951 the company was generally known as Atlas Comics.
Q 08Which psychiatrist's 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent helped trigger the Comics Code?
Fredric Wertham
He argued Superman was fascistic and Wonder Woman's independence made her a lesbian. His research has since been widely disputed.
Q 09Which two words did the 1954 Comics Code forbid from appearing in any comic's title?
Horror and terror
Publisher William Gaines believed the clause was aimed squarely at his EC titles. Vampires, ghouls and werewolves were banned outright.
Q 10Which two big publishers never displayed the Comics Code seal because licensors like Disney set stricter rules?
Dell and Gold Key
Distributors were the Code's real enforcers: without the seal, most wholesalers simply refused to carry a comic.
Q 11The publisher EC was founded by Max Gaines under what original name?
Educational Comics
After his father died in a boating accident in 1947, William Gaines took over and renamed it Entertaining Comics, launching Tales from the Crypt and Mad.
Q 12Mad switched from comic book to magazine format with which issue in 1955?
#24
The change was made to keep editor Harvey Kurtzman, and it also took Mad outside the Comics Code's reach. It published 550 regular issues by 2018.
Q 13Which comic is generally taken to mark the start of the Silver Age?
Showcase #4
It introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash in October 1956, from editor Julius Schwartz, writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino.
Q 21Watchmen won a Hugo Award in 1988 in which category?
Other Forms
It was later the only graphic novel on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. Dave Gibbons used a nine-panel grid throughout.
Q 22Which colourist painted the watercolours for Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns?
Lynn Varley
The four issues used square binding, card-stock covers and glossy paper to show off the colour. Bruce Wayne is 55 and a decade retired.
Q 23Maus won a Pulitzer in 1992, but in what form did the board give it?
A Special Award in Letters
Q 14Besides Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, which two heroes stayed in print from the Golden Age to the Silver Age?
Aquaman and Green Arrow
They survived as back-up features in Adventure Comics. Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy came along for the ride.
Q 15Wolverine's first appearance was a single teaser panel in which comic?
The Incredible Hulk #180
His first full appearance came in the next issue. Len Wein wrote it, John Romita Sr. designed the costume and Herb Trimpe drew it.
Q 16Which uncredited writer came up with the Giant-Size X-Men #1 idea of Polaris hurling Krakoa into space?
Chris Claremont
Len Wein and Dave Cockrum got the credits. The 68-page issue reached newsstands in February 1975 and X-Men resumed with #94 that August.
Q 17Black Panther, the first Black superhero in mainstream American comics, debuted in which issue?
Fantastic Four #52
Lee and Kirby introduced T'Challa in July 1966. Christopher Priest's late-1990s run reframed Wakanda as a technological superpower.
Q 18Jack Kirby's Fourth World titles were published by DC between which years?
1970 and 1973
New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen introduced Darkseid.
Q 19Which 1985–86 DC series by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez collapsed the Multiverse into a single universe?
Crisis on Infinite Earths
The Monitor had been seeded in The New Teen Titans in 1982. The 12-issue series killed off Barry Allen and the Earth-One Supergirl.
Q 20Alan Moore's original Watchmen pitch was built around characters DC had bought from which publisher?
Charlton Comics
Dick Giordano liked the proposal but did not want Blue Beetle and Captain Atom left dead or dysfunctional, so Moore created look-alikes instead.
The committee sidestepped the question of whether a comic about mice and cats was fiction or history. Art Spiegelman first serialised it in Raw.
Q 24In Maus, Jews are mice and Germans are cats. Which nationality is drawn as pigs?
Poles
Spiegelman originally considered a strip about American racism with cats as Klansmen chasing African-American mice.
Q 25Superman #75, in which Doomsday kills Superman, sold how many copies?
Over six million
It was the top seller of 1992. The whole storyline existed because a planned Lois-and-Clark wedding was postponed to line up with the TV series.
Q 26Which three artists broke Marvel sales records with Spider-Man #1, X-Force #1 and X-Men #1 before founding Image?
Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee
Image launched in 1992 as a home for creator-owned work. McFarlane and Lee resented not being paid when their art was reused on merchandise.
Q 27Neil Gaiman's The Sandman ran for how many issues, from 1989 to 1996?
75
Dream, or Morpheus, is one of the seven Endless. Editor Karen Berger picked Sam Kieth as the first artist.
Q 28Which 1954 Mick Anglo character did Alan Moore revive, later renamed Miracleman?
Marvelman
Moore's revival began in Warrior in 1982; Eclipse continued it under the new name in the US, and Marvel has held the licence since 2009.
Q 29Judge Dredd first appeared in which issue, or 'prog', of 2000 AD?
The second
John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra created him in 1977. Editor Pat Mills had earlier planned a horror strip called Judge Dread, named after a ska singer.
Q 30Which cartoonist popularised the term 'graphic novel' with A Contract with God in 1978?
Will Eisner
His newspaper-insert series The Spirit ran from 1940 to 1952. The industry's top awards were named for him and first given in 1988.