**Note on disputed dates:** The ABC News contemporaneous account (2011) cites Fishler as having sold the comic in 1995; the CGC account gives 1996; the 929nin.com account gives 1997. The $150,000 purchase price is consistent across multiple accounts. This article does not resolve the year discrepancy by choosing one version; it notes the range where precision would be misleading.
**Note on January 2026 seller identity:** The InsideHook account describes Cage as the seller’s connection to the comic while Gulf News describes anonymity for both parties. If Cage sold at the 2011 ComicConnect auction, subsequent sales would involve later owners. This article does not assert Cage was the 2026 seller; it follows the established provenance chain.
**Note on the investigation:** No public record consulted names a suspect in the theft. This article does not identify a culprit or imply that the man who purchased the storage locker was the thief.
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JERRY SIEGEL AND JOE SHUSTER: THE CREATORS BEHIND THE FIRST PANEL
Any complete account of Action Comics No. 1 has to reckon with the people who made it—two teenagers from Cleveland, Ohio, who invented one of the most durable characters in popular culture and received virtually nothing in return.
Jerry Siegel was born in 1914. Joe Shuster was born in 1914 as well, in Toronto, before his family moved to Cleveland. They met at Glenville High School, where Siegel was writing science fiction for a fan publication called Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization that he produced on a mimeograph machine. Shuster shared his interest in science fiction and had the drawing ability that Siegel lacked. The collaboration was natural: Siegel would conceive and write; Shuster would draw.