Cpt Kirk

Thanks to Ben Griffel, the Eden Prairie joins its brothers. Great find Ben!! Ten years ago, I never would have dreamed of being able to put ten of these mall variants together.

I was surfing this morning and the following things occurred to me. a. These known 13 variants of Adv of Superman 443 came out in 1988. Hard to believe, but that was 30 years ago. Many of the malls featured in this variant are now dying and may become things of the past. b. There are websites dedicated to history of malls but images of the logos from 1988 are very hard to find. The logos on these comic books might be one of the few logo images remaining from 1988. c. BGriffeyJr had a theory that Homart Development company was a common denominator for these mall variants. Homart for sure developed at least 9 of the 13 mall variants that are known to have been featured in this Adv of Superman 443 Mall variant. This seems like a very logical explanation, but this might also be coincidence because Homart developed more malls than just about anyone. Looking at the Homart wiki site you can see they developed several malls whose logos have been found on Adv of SM 443. Unless otherwise noted, the source of Homart opening the following malls was the Homart wiki article: 1. Midland Mall opened in 1967 in Warwick RI which became Rhode Island Mall in 1985 (closed in 2012) 2. Montclair Plaza opened in 1968 in Montclair CA but was owned and remodeled by Homart in 1985 according to the following article: http://articles.latimes.com/1985-10-27/realestate/re-12523_1_montclair-plaza 3. Eden Prairie Center in Minneapolis MN; opened in 1976 4. Fiesta Mall in Mesa AZ; opened in 1979 5. Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee IL (Chicago suburb); opened in 1980 6. Willowbrook Mall in Houston TX; opened 1981 7. Washington Park Mall in Bartlesville OK; opened 1984 by Homart according this article: http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/business/20170607/bartlesville-mall-listed-for-134m 8. North Shore Square Mall in Slidell LA; opened 1985 by Homart according to this article: http://www.nola.com/northshore/index.ssf/2017/06/slidell_mall_owners_hope_to_re.html 9. The Parks at Arlington (Dallas TX suburb); opened 1988 Others malls appearing on Adv of SM 443 that I can’t tie to Homart: 10. Clearview (Metairie LA or Butler PA… not sure) 11. Westgate Mall (Brockton MA, but hard to say)… there are a lot of Westgate Malls and I can’t find an image of the Westgate logo on Superman 443 that ties to the mall in Brockton; the closest logo match I can find is this one, which does belong to the Brockton MA mall: https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS617US617&biw=1600&bih=720&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=fxX3WuKCGcKz5gLazauIDQ&q=westgate+mall+sign&oq=westgate+mall+sign&gs_l=img.3...4895.6715.0.7032.11.11.0.0.0.0.168.940.9j2.11.0....0...1c.1.64.img..0.9.803...0j0i24k1j0i10i24k1j0i67k1j0i5i30k1.0.FD8JIYkYBRY#imgrc=AboUZX2VoyHKaM: 12. Georgetown Park (Wash DC)... the logo from Adv of SM 443 can clearly be seen in the doors to the mall in the 1994 movie True Lies 13. Cranberry Mall (Cranberry PA or more likely the mall opened in 1987 by ShopCo in Westminster MD and now known as Westminster Mall)

p.s. I sent you a private message. Please check it and let me know what you think. Thanks again for posting the photo.

LOL. I agree there's not much to those stickers. For me, it's more of a matter of research and documentation. It is interesting to me which comics got the stickers.

Thanks kenaran.... As I went back through all of these, I noticed that very few are in high grade. It makes me think these were just given away at those shopping malls, and very few made it into the hands of serious collectors. Thus, most probably got beat up before making their way into the dollar and quarter bins, or even more likely just thrown away.

dagnabit kenaran... now I've got these stickers on the brain. Many moons ago I found a Superman 80 with newsstand sticker placed over a direct sales UPC, just like your Superman 75 IV new sticker. I thought it might just be a fluke. Today I found another Superman 80 with news sticker at a 2nd and Charles. Attached are a couple photos of them.

Here is the newsstand sticker that was placed over the direct sales UPC on the deluxe version of Action Comics 695. I know of only 2 of these stickered copies, and I think they both came from the same place. When the appearance of the sticker is really hard to find (e.g., just one or two known) it makes me think that some store put the sticker on there, as RockMyAmadeus stated.

kenaran -- Great photos and great posting. Thanks for sharing!

We had a Hastings in Auburn AL. They did not normally sell new comic books but rather re-sold used ones (very similar to 2nd and Charles). It would not surprise me if they put their own stickers on the Superman 75's.

Thanks to kenaran, the Georgetown Park variant of Adv of Superman 443 joins the collection. I really appreciate kenaran for doing the trade to make this happen. Only known ones missing from this bunch are The Parks, Fiesta, and Westgate Mall. I'm sure they are many more mall variants existing but not yet seen (recall I'm offering a bounty to anyone who is willing to sell one to me if not currently in my collection).

For whatever it is worth, the stickers on Superman 75 2nd printing and 4th printing were both placed over a direct sales UPC box.

I agree that we will eventually see some more of these pop up. We were looking for 10 years before an Action 706 DCU was found, and then three more of them appeared within six months, so go figure. I would not be surprised if some issues never surface though. Batman 525, for example, was dated December 1994 (after the last of the 20-pack bricks) and from that same month we have never seen a Superman 95, Superman Man of Steel 39, nor a Justice League 94. On the other hand, I think Adv of Superman 523 (May 1995) DCU should exist because all the other Superman/Batman titles from that month have a DCU variant. Same thing with Justice League 96 (Feb 1995)

Here's the photo of Detective 802 (one with sticker, and the other with sticker pulled off). Note how part of the bar code is missing on the original printing of this newsstand issue. As mentioned earlier, I also found a copy of the defective bar-coded copy that never got a sticker placed onto it (so that copy somehow got away from the printer without being corrected with a sticker... but I would think if that if you placed that un-stickered comic book under a bar code reader, it would not be readable)

As always, a very thoughtful and interesting analysis. I really appreciate you for putting this info out there.

For sure, brother! One of my favorite "stickered" comic books was Detective 802. On that newsstand issue, they printed the comic book with part of the bar code actually missing. By a small miracle, I found an un-stickered newsstand version of TEC 802. I will post some photos later.

Great analysis. I have now seen four copies of this Superman 75 2nd print with a newsstand sticker, and each of the stickers is identical. And I have a feeling we can find more. I'm thinking that the publisher placed these stickers on the Superman 75 2nd print since all stickers are identical in appearance and placement. I'm not sure I would call it a variant, but if I was looking for a complete set of all the different versions on Superman 75, I would place this stickered copy on my want list. I've seen examples where others besides the publisher must have placed stickers on comic books, though. I now have 4 different versions of stickers that were placed on the error bar code of Action 759. Each of the stickers is correcting the error number "10" on the originally printed bar code of the newsstand version and replacing it with the correct number "11". As Divad put it, a sticker is a sticker. But heck, I'm collecting them anyway!

Nice! You just bought the 4th copy that I'm aware of.

I'm super impressed that you found the 4th print with newsstand sticker, kenaran! That fact that there were two of them found in different places makes me think they really were distributed that way. Regarding my Action 695 deluxe with sticker, I know there are two copies but I believe both were found in the same place. I sometimes wonder if someone just placed a sticker on the 695 to re-sell it at a used book store after it was sold at a comic shop. If a few more pop up after time, then I will start to believe those stickers were made by the publisher.

Great find kenaran! Those death of Superman comic books were all over the map as far as variations go. I found a Deluxe Action 695 that had a newsstand sticker on it too. I can only guess, but if I recall the demand was insatiable so maybe people just put stickers on them to sell them on the newsstands. I can understand the newsstand sticker on the 2nd printing of Superman 75. That is because the demand for that Superman 75 was off the charts, and thus I'm guessing some newsstand stickers were placed on top of the direct sales UPC of the 2nd print so that the demand from newsstands could be met too. What I find perplexing is why they would put a newsstand sticker on the 4th print when they already made a newsstand version of the 4th print. Could there have been an error on the 4th print bar code?

Warlord -- Nice work! In the name of research, I had to open the "The Batman Collection" pack that I showed on page 41 of this thread. The Detective 674 DCU with "Collector's Pack First Printing" came from that pack. You would then think the Batman LODK 63 DCU from that same pack would also say "Collector's Pack First Printing" but instead it was blank in the indicia... go figure. I presume the unmarked version of TEC 674 DCU came from the 20-pack brick with issues dated May 1994.

One of the things I really like about this variant is that it appeared to be strictly promotional and there was never a thought for collectors to get each variant as a collector's item. As opposed to today, where it seems like the variants are created to get collectors and fans to buy more copies of the same issue.

The North Shore Square variant has joined its brothers thanks to a dear friend of mine. Pictured below are 8 of the mall variants together in one shot (I am missing 4 known ones) plus the direct sales, newsstand and Canadian variant.

Aha... I forgot all about that.... thanks for chiming in!