sirwesker

Everything up to and including Age of Apocalypse is worth reading in my opinion. After 1995 is when it really started to fall apart though, until Morrison came along. Even after that though X-Men had a difficult time finding its stride until Mike Carey started writing. Right around when Messiah Complex started did X-Men hit some of its best times since Byrne in my opinion.

That's right, the whole Morlock storyline with Storm and all of Forge's earlier appearances are in there as well, including that Barry Windsor Smith story.

There is some good stuff in there. The New Mutants begins in that time period and has some good crossover I believe. Rogue debuts in 158 and joins the X-men in those issues. Wolverine's adventure to Japan is in the 170's with Rogue. Lots of stuff with Emma Frost's academy and the first appearance of the Hellions (Warpath, Firestar). Madelyne Prior debuts in those issues so there is some good storytelling with her and Scott. There are some Brood and Shi'ar storylines if I'm not mistaken also. It's definitely not as good as the Byrne stuff, but I wouldn't dismiss it. I'd actually say its quite a bit better than the post Mutant Massacre stuff. Once X-factor starts, and once Claremont leaves New Mutants, that's when the whole franchise goes down hill dramatically, and doesn't really rebound until Lobdell, Nicieza and David take over.

I was recently able to acquire a CGC 9.8 of the 4th print. I believe there are only 19 of them on the census. Not to say more don't exist raw, but they don't come up for sale all that often in that condition.

Price reduced to 199.

Yup, I was in the process of taking down a bunch of my listings this morning.

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Yup, 139 has the first "Welcome to the X-Men, Hope You Survive the Experience" cover.

I'm looking to buy one of these, probably a blue label. What does the general market seem to be lately in a 9.8? Its hard to gauge.

Anyone else a little underwhelmed with the comic guest list this year? Last year was amazing, as were the years before that. Not a lot of big Image writers and artists this year like there usually are.

For Amazing Spiderman Annual #1, it currently says 1st Appearance of the Sinister Six, and then lists of two or three lines of pinups. What about instead of the pinups, this info was listed: 4th Doctor Octopus, 3rd Vulture, 2nd Sandman, 2nd Electro, 2nd Kraven, 2nd Mysterio I've seen references to a characters 2nd and 3rd appearances many times on other early silver age books.

The thing is, people are going to be buying Oblivion Song because its a new Kirkman book, hoping to ride some Walking Dead magic. And its going to sell a boat load of pre-orders. So it will probably have no value. Its hard to have an independent book by a big name creator take the market by surprise anymore.

My favorite part of silver age X-men is the fact that Xavier was clearly a villain at the beginning. And perhaps a child predator. Issue 3 is classic, they literally kidnap the Blob because he doesn't want to be on their team.

I kid you not there are 12 versions of issue #1. Of a 5 issue mini. Published by Comixtribe. And there are at least 4 versions of every other issue. They even released a Black Friday bag that came with a little cardboard figure in it, and they made three variants of the cardboard figure. It's insanity. I also remember them at NYCC last year increasing the price of the variants they were selling in their booth as the show progressed. That was something I had never seen before. I would love to see this series continue, but hopefully at Image.

If you want an example of a comic that went way overboard on the variants - look no further. I was rabidly collecting it at first, and before issue 4 was even released, I was burned out. Great comic, but I feel sort of taken advantage of as a collector. My own fault I suppose for buying them, but have really lost interest in collecting it anymore.

I would imagine issue #1 is going to sell a billion copies.

I've been meaning to collect this series for a while now and am about to start the plunge. But what are your guys' thoughts on the #1 incentive variant? Seems like nearly every copy in existence is a CGC 9.8. Do you think they will hold their value or is it a dubious purchase right now?

My understanding is the 4th print is incredibly rare.

143 would be the best place to stop if you're not going beyond 150, because that's John Byrne's last issue and is really great. John Byrne did the art and much of the plotting from 108-143. 101 is a huge first appearance - Phoenix. 141 has many first appearances in it as the first part of Days of Future Past - Rachel Summers, Destiny, Pyro, Avalanche All of the Shiar and X-Men space characters make their first appearances in the early 100's. 117 is the first appearance of the Shadow King 109 is the first appearance of Guardian 120 and 121 are the first Alpha Flight appearances 129 is the first Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde. All the Hellfire appearances start there and go through the 130's with Dark Phoenix. 102 is the origin of Storm. The list goes on and on. From 94 to 143 is an incredible period of time in X-Men. Almost every issue has something.

Most X-men characters not created in the silver age were created during that run of fifty issues after Giant Size.

Price reduced from 799 to 725.