Off Panel

I'm surprised by the number of people who are down on Batman Adventures 12. Whether you like her or not, Harley Quinn seems to be firmly ingrained in popular culture and is one of DC's best-known characters. Every Halloween you can't swing a comically over-sized mallet without hitting a Harley. I'm not a DC collector and I don't own the book, but I've at least thought about picking one up.

I don’t buy restored books but if I were a golden age collector I would probably revisit this policy.

I do. (Full transparency: my GS X-Men 1 is in fantastic condition, but my XM 94 is a well-loved childhood copy.)

I've always been of two minds on XM 94. On the one hand, I get it. First appearance of the new X-Men in their regular series. I tend to be more excited about main title issues than the Giant-Size, King-Size and annual books, which always seem like add-ons. Also, I get the scarcity argument. there are five Giant-Size X-Men 9.8's for every XM 94 9.8. That pings my collector radar, too. On the other hand, "first appearance in a series" is a weird qualification, like "best Major League pitcher with curly hair." It's like, "Is he the best or isn't he? Where does the hair come in?" This is the second appearance of Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird, and the third full appearance of Wolverine and people are jazzed about it because it happened in a regular monthly title (like most second and third appearances if you think about it). So yeah, depending on the hour and the day, I'm either excited or 'meh' about X-men 94. Guess I'm just mercurial that way.

Two days after that stinker of a movie was a terrible time to run that particular auction…

A few interesting results from this week's Comics and Comic Art Signature auction. Heritage had two Giant-Size X-Men 1's, both 9.8 with white pages. The first one sold for $39K (or $46,800 with Buyer's Premium). The second sold a day later for $44K (or $52,800 with Buyer's Premium). The discrepancy was interesting to me because, to my eye, the cheaper book had a better wrap (although neither was perfect). The bigger news from the auction was that an X-Men 94, 9.8 with white pages, sold for $55K (or $66K with Buyer's Premium), outpacing both the GS X-Men. (Of course, for context, a 9.8, white-paged Hulk 181 sold for $96K with Buyer's Premium. Yow!)

In defense of GS X-men 1, there's a whole lot going on in that book. Yes, the CGC label correctly notes that it's the 1st appearance of Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus (and of Thunderbird, who shuffled off this mortal coil two issues later.) And of course, it's the second full appearance of Wolverine, which would be enough to elevate this book all by itself. But there are also a couple of things the label neglects to mention: It's also the first appearance of Krakoa, who, as those who still read X-men know, has become kind of a big deal over the past few years. It also features the first appearance of Illyana Rasputin. Like many here, I see Hulk 181 as the more important book, but GS X-Men is still number two in the Marvel Bronze Age Trinity: Hulk 181, Giant-Size X-men 1, and Amazing Spider-man 129.

Congratulations, Barton! That is an amazing accomplishment and I am in awe! There may be another such collection out there somewhere but I’m not aware of it. (Also, those last two books look great!) Isn’t collecting a terrible, wonderful affliction?

Those are incredibly cool!

Pretty cool that Jim Davis did that. I will say that when my daughter was in high school, she and her friends loved Garfield ironically (but with that generation I think ironic love is still love).

Here’s the catalyst for this topic: A local pizza place has a wrought iron Wolverine door* that I think is awesome. My wife says that Wolverine looks like he just got kicked in the X-Nuggets. I reminded her that, while Wolverine has fast healing and regeneration powers, getting kicked in the X-Nuggets still *hurts*. (*They also have pretty good pizza.)

I always enjoy seeing comic book heroes and villains in unexpected places, whether it’s in graffiti, school art projects, or weirder places still. Are there any examples in your community that you’d like to share with your fellow boardies? (This may be a short-lived topic because it’s kinda scavenger-hunty, but we’ll see…)

That’s not a nice thing to say about Aunt May!

I considered going with “SECOND FULL APPEARANCE OF WOLVERINE!” but it just didn’t flow as well.

IH 181: FIRST WOLVERINE!GSX-Men 1: First appearance of a bunch of characters that are "whatever". SECOND WOLVERINE!

I love ASM 101 but I agree with you that the price is way out of whack right now. I predict that’s coming to a violent end on April 2nd. We all know that the book got pumped up because Morbius got a movie, but how many times has that movie been delayed “because of COVID” at this point? Twice? Three times? Sony didn’t have any issues releasing “Spider-man: No Way Home” during the Omicron outbreak. The Batman found its way to the theatres all right. It’s only Morbius that “COVID” is impacting at this point. I don’t know if the movie stinks but the studio sure seems to think so. Sellers, if you’ve got high-grade Morbius on your hands, I would be unloading it now. At midnight on April 1st, I’m thinking that coach turns back into a pumpkin.

I might have a soft spot for this book…

To lend a little anecdotal support to this, I bought a copy of SSM #2 off eBay a couple of years ago and when I received it, I thought, “This looks like it was printed yesterday.” Just a gorgeous magazine untouched by time. I sent it to CGC and they liked it, too.

Hey, it’s the Mile High Comics slogan!* (*But take 50% off with code word “Nanette”!)

Yep. Here’s the “before”: I bought this book at a show back in 1984 before I had developed even rudimentary restoration detection skills. Having said that, no regrets. Dave Sim signed the first page for me back in 1993 and CGC has now absolved the book of its sins, even if it’s a little roughed up.

I just got my personal copy back from CGC (although no one would mistake it for high grade).

Those happened after my post but yes, you’re right. A 9.8 sold at Heritage on January 13th for $48K and another sold on the same platform for the same price the very next day.* * In both instances, that price includes a 20% buyer’s premium, so figure a winning bid of $40K plus $8K in fees.

No mystery here. It’s obviously a newsstand version.

This reminds me of a story my nephew told me last year. He works in the downtown area of a small city in East Tennessee. One day in November 2020 he was outside taking a break when he saw "Joe," the local nomad wandering down the street. Joe liked to spend a lot of time out in the woods and would often be away for months at a time. My nephew said at that point he hadn't seen him in over a year. Joe was moving down the sidewalk with his big tree branch walking stick, staring at everybody wearing masks and all the masking signs in the shop windows. As he got closer, my nephew said, "Hey, Joe." Joe stopped and said, "Hey, yourself!" Then added, "So, um... Did somethin' happen?"