Good news for those who were worried about the fate of Nicolas Cage’s stolen comic books (c’mon, admit it, it’s kept you up a few nights): Los Angeles police have recovered his first edition copy of Action Comics No. 1 (aka the first appearance of Superman), which was stolen from his West Los Angeles home over a decade ago. The Holy Grail of rare comics — valued at $1.5 million — turned up last month in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley, along with Jimmy Hoffa’s body and the missing reels of The Magnificent Ambersons. (Okay, we made the last two up.) The L.A. Times reports that the LAPD is investigating the unidentified man who found the comic among the contents of an abandoned storage container, which he purchased at an auction.
Cage responded to the discovery with typical understatement: “It is divine providence that the comic was found and I am hopeful that the heirloom will be returned to my family.” Incidentally, the comic book was stolen right around the same time the actor dropped out of Superman Lives, a never-realized cinematic reboot of the character — which would have been, as Patton Oswalt noted at the time, “finally the moody, whiny Superman that we’ve always wanted.” Also among Cage’s comic book collection (just a sliver of his comically over-the-top stable of oddball purchases) were Detective Comics No. 1 and Detective Comics No. 37, the first appearance of Batman. Neither of those turned up in the storage locker; if they remain missing, Cage might have to pursue the thieves himself — which, based on his films, we’d imagine involves putting on a goofy, stringy wig and yelling a lot.