Derivative Works & Roy Liechtenstein’s Fifth Kiss (of Death)

The first time I saw a multi-million-dollar “Masterpiece” by Roy Lichtenstein, a supreme painter from the Pop Art movement, I had the same thought as almost everyone: Isn’t this just a comic?
Now, I like comics, and think they’re fun all blown up and framed, mock-seriously, on the office wall. But they’re a dime-a-dozen, not millions a pop (not even in Pop Art).
As quickly as that silly thought popped up in my mind, it popped away. Of course not! The entire art world would not be duped into shelling out hundreds of lifetime salaries each for simple enlarged comic strips. It must be some other intellectual statement, based on the underlying concept of comic books. Something deeper, I didn’t understand. Something so subtle, I needed an expert to analyze to explain it to me.