fantastic_four

Everybody remember to wrap plot and story specifics in spoiler tags for at least two to four weeks to give everyone a chance to watch all of the episodes. Really looking forward to this, haven't seen any episodes yet though.

Fixed for greater accuracy. I looked for a jump around when Star Wars Episode III came out in 2005 but couldn't find one.

Yep. I bought my 9.4 copy in 2001 for $1000 and it might be worth $1500 today going by GPA sales from the last year. That's an APR increase of around 3%, which is about the same as the inflation rate. Your 9.4 copy is worth more than $1500. Looks like the 12-month GPA is $1625...still not high enough to claim I've beaten inflation.

Yep. I bought my 9.4 copy in 2001 for $1000 and it might be worth $1500 today going by GPA sales from the last year. That's an APR increase of around 3%, which is about the same as the inflation rate.

At best, this looks like pure movie hype. And everyone who bought high grade copies of Avengers 4 during the run-up to the Captain America and Avengers movies knows EXACTLY what that looks like a year or three later. There are simply too many copies of Star Wars #1 in existence to support this huge a price jump in this short a period of time. It is completely unsustainable. Now's a great time to try flipping the issue though.

Prices on 9.4, 9.6, and 9.8 copies of Star Wars #1 have increased by 100% to 150% over the last 45 days. Something's up, and without knowing for sure what exactly is up, spending money on them at a price anywhere near current levels is a big risk. Given that the movie announcement didn't cause this big a spike in prices, something else being at play is more likely. I need to read through that Star Wars thread before I say much more.

Nightcrawler was in X-Men United and it didn't affect the value of GSXM1, so I dunno why even another cool Nightcrawler appearance would affect it now. And that opening sequence with him bamf'ing all over the White House was one of the coolest sequences in ANY X-Men movie. His design in that film was great too with those angelic symbols all over his skin, that marked him as more stylish than the comic version.

We're likely to be past any one movie affecting GSX1 at this point. If the dial on the book hasn't budged much after 15 years of movies, one more isn't likely to do much more to it. From a value appreciation standpoint, GSX1 and SW1 have something in common--neither is likely to yield much return except MAYBE SW1 over the short term between now and the end of the year when the movie comes out. Lots of better choices on books with similar demand but FAR less supply for anything other than a quick SW1 flip.

Markets are determined by supply and demand--can't consider one but not the other. I've never had much doubt about the demand for Star Wars #1--I wanted that book long before I ever wanted any X-Men book--it's just the HUGE supply that makes it a questionable choice from a market perspective. There's just too many of them out there...hard to see the value outlasting movie hype. And the longer the value continues at current levels, the more and more of the raw copies that will get slabbed. Spectacular Spider-Man is in a similar boat. If not for the HUGE supply, that book would likely be worth 4x what it is. Marvel was cranking out #1s in this time period with huge print runs.

I wasn't aware of this recent bump by Star Wars #1, so thanks for turning me onto it. (thumbs u If Star Wars had exhibited this pattern for years I'd agree with its greater potential for wide appeal to GSX1, but an increase around the movie looks like a bubble. Too soon to tell, but we should know in about three years. The particular reason to think bubble with Star Wars 1 is the population is frigging huge to a degree that makes even GSX1 and Hulk 181 look modest by comparison. There are triple the number of high grade copies of SW1 in the CGC Census, and I don't think that even scratches the surface of what's out there. It's a book that many have not bothered to slab due to its comparatively low price. I think I have three nosebleed copies I never dreamed I'd have a reason to slab until now.

What makes you say that? Can't imagine it's the case. If you mean the variant issue, that's not popularity, that's an example of extreme rarity creating huge demand for a tiny handful of people.

I'd put GS X-Men 1 in that second group. Certainly the demand for it greatly eclipses GI Joe. The height of popularity in all of comics is Spider-Man first, X-Men second, and the height of X-Men's popularity began with GS X-Men 1. It'd be worth about the same and possibly more than the 1963 X-Men #1 if they were both available in equivalent supply. It's worth noting that Hulk 181 has proven to be a similarly anemic investment for the exact same reason GS X-Men 1 is--the supply is just too huge. Current CGC Census populations are 5130 graded copies of GSX1 and 7248 copies of Hulk 181. Huge compared to 3008 for 1963 X-Men 1 and 2284 for AF15. The high grade 8.0 and up populations are particularly skewed--111 copies of AF15, 226 copies of XMen 1, 2517 copies of GSX1, and 3252 copies of Hulk 181.

The popularity of GS X-Men 1 is solid and higher than most of the Silver keys besides perhaps Amazing Fantasy 15, but the supply is just through the roof. While the Silver Age keys have multiplied in value since CGC started, Giant-Size X-Men #1 has increased at a rate that keeps up with inflation and not much more. That's mostly because it's just not hard to find a copy in any grade up to and including 9.8. If Giant-Size X-Men #1 were available in the same supply as Amazing Fantasy 15, I suspect we would have seen similar multiplying of value for it like we have for the Silver keys. But due to high population, it just hasn't seen anywhere close to the same rate of increase.

It depends on the circumstances and the individual. Like others here, I have enough experience in judging a book's grade and in restoration to be comfortable making a judgement on a raw book. If a raw and a slabbed were in the same grade and the similarly priced, I would buy the raw for my collection, allowing me to examine it fully. I would buy the slabbed if I wanted to resell in the holder, as it would save me time and money in getting it graded. For example, I bought a slabbed 5.5 Mister Mystery some years back. Looked very nice until I cracked it and there were a pair of spline splits...about 3/4" at the top and a "spider-web split" smack in the center of the spine of about an inch, going about 1/2" into the back cover. Had I seen that raw I would not have paid as much as I did. Don't think these boards represent the general world of comic collecting. This is a fairly rarefied atmosphere. We have developed a baseline that includes CGC. It colors our perception of what the collecting world is really like. This. Thanks FT. Not sure what is going on but for a while now 95% of my posts are not replied to. I appreciate it. Your posts are thoughtful, articulate, and make a lot of sense. You stick out like a sore thumb around here and should probably leave.

I really can't tell that her boobs are getting any bigger. She needs to eat more pancakes and waffles.

Marvel will probably never put the Galactus on-screen we know from the comics. Kirby's original concept of the character was that he was a big space monster a la Fin Fang Foom, but Lee thought that would be hard for people to identify with, so he asked Kirby to make him a giant humanoid. A giant humanoid would look rather dumb on the big screen though and that's why we never saw Galactus in that second film. Odds are we'll never see him. What would be interesting is if he were a shape changer and changed into humanoid when interacting with humans, etc. the way other alien or supernatural life forms have. That could easily tie into the storyline both cloud and humanoid. That's exactly the way they later retconned him to explain the dumb idea of why he looks like a big Earth human, that he appears in whatever form the inhabitants are on a planet he's consuming.

Marvel will probably never put the Galactus on-screen we know from the comics. Kirby's original concept of the character was that he was a big space monster a la Fin Fang Foom, but Lee thought that would be hard for people to identify with, so he asked Kirby to make him a giant humanoid. A giant humanoid would look rather dumb on the big screen though and that's why we never saw Galactus in that second film. Odds are we'll never see him.

The supposedly final castings are in: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/66243 Going in the order shown in the photo below it's Jamie Bell as Thing, Miles Teller as Reed, Kate Mara as Sue, and Michael B. Jordan as Torch. Are they ditching the whole Sue/Johnny brother and sister thing, or is one of them adopted?

I like it, but I suspect they're thinking it's too hard and severe with the slightest hint of masculinity. Slightly more than slightest I'd say... If this is what a dude looks like, then maybe I'm into dudes. I always suspected as much.

I like it, but I suspect they're thinking it's too hard and severe with the slightest hint of masculinity. I think it's refreshing to finally see a strong-looking female superhero statue. I applaud Sideshow for not taking the easier route and making this about cheesecake. As an Amazon she's supposed to have some masculine qualities like size and strength to be a man-beater, so I'm more than fine with it.

I like it, but I suspect they're thinking it's too hard and severe with the slightest hint of masculinity.

Thanks, Slym. Okay, so it's been 10 days or more. I had placed the sealed box of kitty litter and comics high on a shelf where it was easy to forget about. Today I lifted it down and opened up the plastic bag and the bin.... It was the moment of truth: Would my incredibly stinky comics still stink to high heaven? Or would they be cured via the magic of kitty litter? The verdict: The comics are remarkably cured of odor! I am really impressed. This method WORKS, and it works WELL. Whatever the chemical process involved, the odor was transfered from the comics to the kitty litter. There is the faintest residual left-over odor on the inside pages of the comics, but the outer pages and cover have no discernable odor at all, other than for any old comic book. What really makes me happy is that whereas I had downgraded the comics' grades by at least 1 or 2 points due to the odor, now I can legitimately judge their grade at the level they would get based on everything else. So, the comics I considered as GD/VG are now VG or VG+, etc. That means for the outlay of $6.50 (kitty litter) and the time it took to put everything in a plastic bin (about 30 minutes, which would have been less if I hadn't been photographing the steps for this message chain), I come out ahead to the tune of whatever increased value the comics have due to their grades getting significant and legitimate upward bumps. Long story short: I am really happy with the outcome of this effort. It far exceeded my hopes. I am tempted to go through all my other comics just to find the ones with the mustiest odors so I can de-odorize them too. Here's a pic of the "moment of truth" bin-opening with now odor-free comics inside: Awesome.

That guy with the hardhat is totally checking out that Sentinel's junk.

They feel that they have to in order to compensate for a lack of superpowers.

Bryan Singer thinks they'd be ridiculous, and he had Wolverine and Cyclops make a joking reference to that fact in the first X-Men film. Not sure I disagree.