mec3437

I don't own a system past N64 so I'm not sure about anything past that. I do remember playing X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse and Maximum Carnage on SNES, X-Men on Sega, and Batman on NES. I enjoyed all of them. I would say the X-Men arcade game was my jam back when I was into that stuff. Pumped a lot of quarters into it at the bowling alley. Watched a YouTube walkthrough of the game and now feel silly because it's apparently super easy to beat.

When I was about 6 or 7, I came home from school one day and there was a small shoebox full of comics. Various books, Marvel, DC, some indie books. The ones I remember are Amazing Spider-Man #328, Daredevil #276, What The--?! #6, Batman #443, Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #1, etc. I don't think my brother brought them home. I want to say someone gave them to my dad when he was working for the post office and he brought them home but he doesn't remember it. From there I would buy the occasional book at the grocery store. Ren & Stimpy, Spidey, X-Men, etc. Fast forward to middle school and I went full bore into the X-book craze of the 90s up until junior year of high school. Then I pretty much stopped until 2006 when IDW picked up the Transformers license and published some solid work. I stopped in 2008 when I had to decide between rent and food over entertainment. I eventually joined the Navy in 2010 and while stationed in Hawaii, started visiting a couple of the local shops and started buying again to fill in gaps. First started filling in the IDW Transformers gaps, then Punisher gaps, and after I got off active duty in 2014, went hard in the paint collecting X-Men and other books. It's pretty much been that way since. A lot of fun, a lot of money spent, a little money made, and some real misfires. But it's been great. I definitely enjoy the hobby even if I hate the outlandish prices since everything is a key now.

IDW reportedly to lose Transformers license TL:DR version is IDW and Hasbro will reportedly not be renewing the license for Transformers comics, and GI Joe as well. No word on when the license ends but I would imagine next year some time. No word/rumor on a new publisher or if there will be a new publisher. I'll be honest, I used to look forward to reading TF every month, but the excitement isn't always there. If it does end, IDW had a solid run, especially with Last Stand of the Wreckers, More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light, '84 Secrets & Lies, and several other stories. Hopefully there will be a real conclusion to any storylines that are ongoing.

We get them in the Dayton and Cincinnati area due to Wright Pat AFB. One of the local shops just got a pretty sweet run of X-Men MJ inserts from the mid 90s to around 130. Some of the books were pretty sharp. I should have bought some of them but I'm trying to be good. Another shop had a huge run of MJ inserts on Marvel Two in One and Marvel Team Up. I snagged some of the nicer ones there. Once in a while, a bigger key like NM 98 will pop up in the area with the MJ insert.

My passion for the medium still exists. I know that much. I still love to sit down and read comics, but yes, the thought of getting out has crossed my mind. I don't know about most collectors, but for me, I am struggling with the prices nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I think it's neat to see some high prices for some nice real key issues. It was cool to see my early X-Men, FF, Avengers, Spidey, etc books take a nice upswing on the value scale. On the other hand, it hurt when trying to find some issues on the list and found I was essentially priced out of the market. I considered selling the majority of the collection and only keeping my X-Men run. I sold a few of the keys on MCS and realized I didn't miss the stuff that I don't care about. At the end of the day, it is still just stuff. Granted, I spent a lot of time and money on tracking down that "stuff". After I knocked out several of the runs I was working on, I started to look at UK and Canadian price variants. I love late 70s through the 90s Marvel. So, I started collecting random series that were surprisingly difficult to put together in high grade because people may not care about them as much as the big superhero books. So I got into reading Thing, Dazzler, Spider-Woman, Nam, and all those random Marvel minis from the 80s. Found out I enjoyed reading titles like that because they tended to be quirky and offbeat. However, putting runs together became harder since any first appearance that occurs in the run is now a "key". While I complain about some of the pricing, I'll be going to the LCS this weekend to buy one or two big books. Then I'll step back for a bit and see how I feel after that on if I want to keep collecting, sell it, or just hold for a bit. This is the longest stretch I've had collecting since I was a kid. Started again in 2013 and have been going strong since then. I have other personal goals that I think might interfere with some of the collecting so I may need to step back and refocus my priorities.

That seems excessive, but shooting for the stars sometimes works out. This one sold for over $1K last month and newsstands from the 1980s were fairly common. I'm not sure if I'm missing something on this book but wow on the final price. I guess someone really wanted it.

The ethnic characters really brought some much needed pizzazz to the bland cookie cutter stylings of the 1980s. Blitzkrieg, Shamrock and Defensor really should have had more screen time.

Super cool series. I picked up the first issue at the LCS. Surprised the troll-flippers didn't snag every copy off the shelf when the store opened that day. I sent my #1 in last month for a press and grade. It's been one of the series I look forward to reading when I get my pull list. I have the FCBD copy of the spin-off series but haven't read it yet. I'll admit that I am a few months behind on reading my pull list books. Life gets in the way sometimes.

Whoa! Reach for the stars and see what happens. Not even the Canadian price variant of #40 cost me anywhere near what homeboy is asking in that listing.

Dazzler had a full run of newsstand (not counting #1 which was direct-only). Here's the last two in the run.

The CG section, while containing some good topics, seems to devolve more into "That's what she said" bullcrap after the first page or two of posts.

Some pickups over the past couple weeks.

I sent #125 and 147 in for grading. A few others will go down soon for a press/dry clean and grade. It's awesome to get some NM copies of the pence books and I wouldn't mind upgrading some copies (like 101) if I can. I'll upload more when I get them scanned in. I know I have some Spidey, Namor and a few others sitting around in boxes here.

Some new additions. Starting to work on some of the minis from the 1980s as well as Transformers and Thing

tmogator Placed order, paid, then requested cancellation seven minutes later as order was "placed by mistake".

It was raw when I bought it in 2015, so I guess it was a 9.0 price. It was a couple hundred bucks from what I remember. I just looked up what 9.4 of 251 is going for. I can't say I'm shocked because the whole market has been interesting to say the least.

CGC is wildly inconsistent. The local LCS had it at a 9.0 which I think is more in line with what it should be. There are a couple of spine ticks. At the top is just some color lift. Overall it is nice, but I think 9.4 is a little generous. These are the notes from when I submitted it. "Center Spine Small Lite Stress Lines Breaks ColorFront Cover Lite Wear All CornersTop Front Cover Small Color Lift"

For some, yes. Others, maybe not. The cost, especially on the key issues, has become somewhat prohibitive but not impossible. I have slowed down on my X-Men pence run but haven't abandoned it. I need 16 more issues to complete the it. Of the 16 issues, however, 1, 2, 3 are on the list. I may have to do some selling or something else to free up the cash needed for those, but I still have some hope of owning them. #1 will be tough, but the others for sure.

But it adds so much value to the conversation... Back on topic, it was painful to see some of the packages I've received over the years. If a buyer does have a request for packaging, I do try to accommodate it if I can. I have had some sellers who get nasty with their responses when I show them how amazing their packing job was by using plain manila envelopes with no reinforcement or bags/boards. I've also had some cheapskates send a slab in a bubble mailer via media mail after charging $15 for shipping. That irritates me, and the feedback will be reflective of it.