mwotka

I'll take it.

56 is a very tough one for color. The Red Comet is nearly always washed out, along with any other areas of reddish color like the switch panel and the skin tone of the girl. There are a few out there with good reds, but just a few. Sadly, mine is incomplete. But never found one that improves the way this one looks in a mylar.

Picked up a nice trio this weekend.

Agreed, stunning copy. Here is my piddling 3.5. It always gets difficult ranking the Planet covers, but this has always been a fav and I agree it has such a modern feel to it, especially compared to a lot of the Zolnerowich covers. It has so many elements that we take for granted in modern sci-fi, with the retro futuristic almost steampunk space suit, the flying saucers, the asteroid base, the great color scheme with blue/green/pink/magenta, and the egghead aliens with tentacles in league with an evil lady torturing innocent space men.

My most recent PCH acquisitions, just in time for Halloween. Everett is da man!

Great thread so far. Here are some of my earliest DCs. New Fun 2, pretty rough alas but super rare, some say the rarest DC book. And then New Fun 5, scored off ebay a few years back and looks to be an unrestored VG+, I think it might be the nicest copy out there. And it features the first bondage cover in comics, which I don't hear mentioned much. Then New Comics 3, 6, 8. These are always fun to look through as the interiors have so much early art by some of the great ones.

Always a tough one to find, and just happy to have this low grade copy. And I like to think perhaps this inspired the creation of Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi.

No offense but I took Abbott and the Cookie freebie on pg 1

Take Abbott and Costello and the freebie. Thanks!

Another big one for color is 54. I got one earlier on when trying to fill my run and didn't realize the extreme variation. I had to correct that problem eventually.

Speaking of color, 18 has always had a wide variation in the background, between light blue and purple. I've always been happy with the coloring on mine.

I prefer Batman the character, and that cover doesn't get much better and I'd love to own one. But I feel like the massive appeal of that cover is more of a recent phenomenon, whereas the Cap 1 has had major impact from day 1 (which I'm sure explains the scarcity of the 31). A major factor for me in collecting these old books is historical impact, and it doesn't get much more significant than Cap punching Hitler on the newsstand a full year before the US entered WWII. It was a major political statement. Imagine walking down the street in NYC and seeing copies on the newsstand, with a country sharply divided on remaining isolationist or interventionist, and some sectors even holding rallies supporting the German expansionist view. Imagine a politician of the day being uncertain where the public mood was and seeing that. And it is not as well remembered that some pro-nazi rallies at the time were quite large, one drew 20,000+ to the old Madison Square Garden in 1939 and featured giant swastika banners flanking George Washington. Goodman allowed his two Jewish creators to make a political statement that at the time was somewhat controversial, and other major publishers were explicitly steering clear of these types of statements. For Goodman it had to be a tough business decision, as what publisher wants to potentially alienate a sizable portion of their buying audience while launching a new title. It also had life safety consequences, as the publisher received threats and had to have security guarding the offices. Then you consider that Simon and Kirby had friends and/or family in Europe being directly impacted by the nihilistic ideals put forth by Hitler, and I think it easy to say there hasn't been a more explicitly political comic cover ever published. Publishing Cap 1 at the time was an heroic act that had a strong influence on American involvement in WW2. There is a famous quote about Churchill that he had mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. Goodman, Simon, and Kirby have done much the same thing with the tools of the comic creators. They set the template for every WW2 cover to follow. And helped convince a hesitant country that it was time to take a stand against tyranny. Cap 1 for me.

Probably split detached cover.

For what it is worth here is my copy. A .5 due to missing back cover. But does credit O'Mealia on there, graded Jan 2020.