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Set Completion: Midnight Nation

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Qalyar

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Midnight Nation was a 2000-2002 series, written by J. Michael Straczynski and published by Top Cow under his Joe's Comics imprint. It's actually a really good read. If you're not familiar with it, the TPB isn't too hard to pick up. As of today, I have a complete graded set; 24 slabbed books. They're all entered in this Registry set. It's the 2021 Best in Set Type winner for Midnight Nation, beating out... hmm. Zero other candidates. Speaking of which, I'll be working to get images uploaded over the next few days. I don't have a legal scanner and I'm a terrible slab-photographer, so I tend to put that off. But with the last books for the collection finally on their way back from CGC, it's past time.

A lot of people here will look and wonder why I did this. There are no great rarities here. No key issues. No valuable books. Complete 12-issue runs of the normal covers are frequently available on Ebay for dollar-bin prices, and even the rarest of the Dynamic Forces covers or foil-logo variants can be obtained for $20 and some patience. You can almost certainly assemble all 24 of these books as nicely-presenting raws for under 200 bucks. And there's not much chance of a film or Netflix adaptation here, so there's no way to pretend these are hot spec books... at least, not with a straight face.

Needless to say, I didn't build this set for the money.

Back in 2000, I was managing operations at a comics and collectibles store, and I read these off the shelf. In the years since, I've introduced several friends to this series, either with timeworn copies of the individual issues, or... slightly less timeworn copies of the trade paperback. Many years ago now, Midnight Nation was the first exposure to comics for one of those friends. She would eventually come to read a wider array of books, but she always considered this one her favorite. She also became more than a friend, and after a couple of years together, she accepted my proposal. However, real life isn't a comic book story, and not all the endings are happy ones. Before then -- a year or two before we first dated, even -- she had received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. At that time, they gave her six months. She beat those expectations many times over, but the inevitable only waits for so long, and we both knew that our engagement was going to be more symbolic than anything else. She passed away shortly after.

There are a lot of reasons to collect comics. There are perhaps not quite as many good reasons to spend the time and money to have them graded and slabbed. I have collected more conventionally-collective books. But I slab a lot of weird stuff these days because the hunt for obscure books is more fun for me than just throwing cash at the same "keys" everyone else wants. But these books aren't obscure. Except for the challenge of finding the highest-grade copies out there, there isn't much of a chase. I'm building this set because it holds memories for me, both fond and bittersweet, and the least I can do in return is to treat that like it's valuable.

Because it is.

With all that said, this set is complete, but it isn't finished. Just like most any set that is taken seriously by its owner, I'm determined to present and preserve the highest-grade copies of these books that I can. How am I doing on that goal?

  • Of the 24 collectible issues here, I've got 9.8 copies for 14 of them. Not too shabby for a first pass. And it's actually one book better than that, which I'll get to in a little bit.
  • Another 5 books are 9.6: #1A, #2, #4, #12, and the normal version of the Wizard 1/2. Trying to go from 9.6 to 9.8 is... well, I think we all know the challenges there. So I'm probably not going to be chasing upgrades here for awhile unless I trip over a copy that someone else slabbed. And that's not currently possible for most of these. My copy of #4 is the top of the census, and the only 9.8 copes of #2 and #12 are Signature Series slabs; I don't collect yellow label books. I'm pretty sure there are 9.8 copies of #1A out there, although the census there is a mess because CGC did not provide distinct labels for #1B until early 2021 (at least some of the 8 copies in 9.8 are probably this cover, though). There are five copies of the Wizard 1/2 in 9.8, out there somewhere, so there's that, I guess...
  • And the last 5 books in the set are down at 9.4. Still high-grade copies, certainly, but with the most significant room for improvement.
    • One of them, technically, I already have improved. My copy of #1B (the "Variant Cover" in the Registry) is the first such copy that CGC assigned a distinct label to. I knew that wasn't a particularly high-grade book; it was submitted as part of my discussion with CGC about breaking the two covers out to begin with. I already own another copy of #1B -- a 9.8 copy -- purchased pre-slabbed (from Portugal!), but it was graded before they gave the second cover its own category, so I'll have to have it reholdered for it to fit in the Registry slot (which is fine, it's also in an old-style holder that needs an update to match the rest!).
    • The rest are what passes for some of the hardest books to find in the set: The so-called "European Exclusive" (it wasn't, I'm pretty sure) Dynamic Forces variant of #1, the Graham Cracker Comics store exclusive Pink Foil variant of #2, the Wizard 1/2 Special Edition (Gold Foil), and the Wizard 1/2 Blue Foil variant (which was a limited edition of 999 copies). I've got the top of the census for the #2 Pink Foil and the 1/2 Blue Foil. There are five copies of the Wizard 1/2 Special Edition in 9.8 slabs, and all of two copies of the defect-magnet black-cover European Exclusive in that grade. So they exist, sort of. But I'll probably have to make my own if I realistically want to push the numbers higher.
  • There have also been two 9.9s received by books in this series. One is for #1, although it's impossible to know at this point whether that's an A cover or B cover book. The other is for the Top Cow Classics in Black & White reprint. These were both very early CGC slabs, graded around July 2001. And, as far as I know, never seen since. I assume they're in a personal collection somewhere. I'd certainly like to own them; I don't expect I ever will. And that's fine, really.

I should also note that there are foreign-language republications of Midnight Nation. I don't have copies in a grade I'm willing to slab. Yet...

For now, though, with this set complete at 9.4+, it's probably going to drop down my priority list for a bit. Obviously, it means a lot to me personally, but I'm not a high-enough volume submitter to make 9.8 pre-screening an option. And while I certainly didn't do all this out of a sense of financial investment, playing the 9.6/9.8 lottery when I probably can't sell undercopy slabs is not extremely appealing. Hopefully, I'll run into some of the existing books that would serve as upgrades in the meantime.

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