Steve Kingstone, BBC News

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

Background: 以超人为封面的第一册漫画以2千1百万美金成交，创下漫画书拍卖的世界新纪录。这本初版“动作漫画"是1938年出版的，这次通过美国的一个拍卖网站进行拍卖。

When it appeared on newsstands 73 years ago, the first edition of Action Comics cost just ten cents. The cover design showed a well-built man in blue tights and a red cape, smashing a car against a rock.

Superman was introduced to readers as a "champion of the oppressed," who could "run faster than an express train."

Only a hundred copies of that first issue survive. And for comic buffs this one was in breathtakingly good condition.

In an online auction it fetched a little over $2 million, a world record for a comic. The buyer remains anonymous. The seller is rumoured to have been the actor Nicolas Cage.

Connoisseurs of the comic world say this type of investment has become popular during troubled economic times because rare collectibles hold their value more reliably than property or shares.