wardevil0

Posted 21 minutes ago Comic says Marvel on it, this is Marvel's incompetence as well. True, but in this sense Marvel is potentially a victim of having their product altered in the aftermarket, and not a party to this particular round of incompetence.

The inaccurate American flags were added AFTER Marvel approved the artwork for the variant, which was basically Clayton Crane imitating the original UF4 cover.

I, for one, greatly appreciate it. I can't imagine how discouraging it can be when every post, no matter what, is roasted by the peanut gallery, but it seems like there are actually developments being made in the QC department. Everything hasn't changed to perfection immediately, but concerns are being addressed. Seeing "Inspected by" stamps on invoices should help a lot when there are remaining issues. Theoretically the error can be more easily corrected, and that's moving in the right direction. Some of these QC issues shouldn't be laid solely at the feet of the QC inspectors, though. The number of stray hairs and other particles that seem to get encapsulated should be remedied before a slab is reviewed by the QC team. Do you know if there have been any changes earlier in the process to reduce the foreign objects?

Yes, anyone can get an exclusive of any Marvel issue assuming they are willing to order at least 3000 copies and abide by the terms of the licensing agreement, whatever they are precisely. Safe to assume Marvel retains the right to veto any artwork they wouldn't endorse. As far as people going nuts over it, they mostly went nuts over the ALLEGEDLY corrupt method Black Flag used to sell them ("influencers" cutting line to buy armloads), the fact that CGC graded these modified books in blue labels, and that CGC has given each of Black Flag's submissions exactly 1x 10, 3x 9.9s, and 6x 9.8s for each of their acetate variants.

Interesting. Having been involved in comics retail since 1978, opening my first store in 1990, and growing to six stores at present, I thought I knew everything about speculation as it relates to comic collecting. Thank you for educating me. Hopefully you can throw a little knowledge CGC's way too. Maybe it's not the correct way to use the term, but if I start buying up Amazing Fantasy 15s because I suspect the price will rise significantly in the short term and I will be able to make a disproportionate profit relative to the value increase of comparable comics, most people would consider that "speculating." Yes, AF15 is a proven value, but why buy into that particular issue instead of Brave and the Bold 28? Because I'm "speculating" that it's value will increase more.

WOW... it was one thing when obvious "0 feedback" bidders were getting on this but now... are people relying on this auction being nuked as a "counterfeit" before they have to cancel or retract? Either way, this gets attention.

Also, it may be worth mentioning that it's up to the copyright holder to decide what they think violates their copyright, and historical precedent is all over the place. DC owns Captain Marvel because a judge decided The Big Red Cheese was too derivative of Superman, but DC can't sell his comic as "Captain Marvel" because another company that came along much later started putting that word on its covers. Marvel sued Jim Shooter's Defiant out of existence because "Plasm" and "Warriors of Plasm" were said to be too close to "Plasmer." Marvel lost, but forced Defiant to spend so much on legal fees they couldn't continue to operate. This was done purely to spite Jim Shooter and eliminate a competitor on the marketplace. My point is, even if there is dubious legal standing for Marvel to do anything, if they want to, they can, and it would likely be catastrophic for Black Flag.

if you check the serial numbers you can see the "grade date" is in July

This morning I bought Chik-fil-A on the app while in my car. When I got to the restaurant, I walked right past the people in line and got my order. No problem. Variant covers and convention exclusives often sell out before everyone who wants one gets one. Very common for SDCC, BotCon, etc. No problem. CGC certified a manipulated comic as "blue label universal," and has demonstrated they will provide 1x 10, 3x 9.9, and 6x 9.8 for these items to be ready on the day of sale. BIG PROBLEM. If we had 8x 9.8s and 2x 9.6s in a Qualified green label, this would be a non-issue.

I *think* this may have been a part of the deal for "influencers" to promote the variants; they may have been picking up pre-sales, which would be slightly different from just jumping line.

I'm sorry to hear that Bruce has passed on, but it's what I inferred when I saw the listing on Heritage. This page is definitely going to a good home, and will be incorporated into one of the largest Ninja High School collections around. The Skottie cover will probably go well beyond my reach, but I'll be sure to throw in on it!

Interestingly, I bought this page in the most recent Heritage auction. The buyer's premium totaled almost twice the final bid... It's hard to tell what pages like this will sell for, but I definitely would have paid the seller more than they're going to get from Heritage. At least this page will soon be reunited with my page 23!

To try to translate some of their hype-speak, I think the "+" is for the pre-slabbed versions. It seems we can assume there will be 1x 10, 3x 9.9, and 6x 9.8 available at time of sale, so they don't want you to imagine you can get one of those for anything less than a totally imaginary price. Also it seems that the "influencer" line may be based on pre-sales or pre-commitments via whatever IG, YT, TT, etc platform. They know who's a collector vs who's an "influencer" based on pre-determined cross promotional activity. This is all just speculation, and possibly gives more benefit of the doubt than is deserved.

I think that's exactly right, but is just the current incarnation of a long-time trend. I think it's in the same vein as Pacific Comics getting Kirby to do Captain Victory and Silver Star, the original Image Revolution of 1992, etc. So many times we're seeing creators on flagship Big Two titles also releasing their innovative ideas through Image, Boom, IDW, whatever. Whether or not those ideas stick long-term, it's generally stuff that would've been published by DC or Marvel in the 60s or 80s. Plus, consider the urge to increase sales by promoting a new 1st appearance. So there's a push to introduce new things, but also a reluctance to lose control of a potential "next Walking Dead" sized payday. Thus, we keep getting things that are more and more derivative and rehashed. So far, it looks like fans are bowing out while speculators keep coming back for more. I remember being in an argument over DC's Punchline character where the announcement of her ongoing series was proof that she was here to stay. Seems like every month is a big announcement of something, or a rush to buy based on movie or TV appearances. One thing no one wants to talk about any more is buying to read the story...

The problem here is that "variant" information has been put in the "issue notes" field. No matter what someone puts in their submission form, this information is going to come up. It's not a common problem, but it does happen and once it does there's really no way to sort it out accurately. Because it's in the notes, it RETROACTIVELY applies to ALL issues of that comic. An example from my collection is Ninja High School #1 from Antarctic Press, here's a serial number to check: 0901243012 On my physical slab, there are no notes at all. In the database now, notes say: 1st appearance of Jeremy Feeple, Itchy Koo, Princess Asrial, Lendo and Professor Steamhead. Poster included. The problem is, the poster was only included in editions sold directly from the publisher either at conventions or mail order. There are about 100 copies of the poster edition, and about 7900 that do not have the poster. But now ALL copies say they have a poster included. Fortunately, if you know where to look, you can tell from the outside whether or not the poster is actually supposed to be in there, but it would be infuriating to buy a copy based on this note and find it to be the far more common regular edition. Also, Professor Steamhead first appeared in Mangazine #2, Feb 1986, but that's a minor quibble compared to these variant notes.

As a kid in the 80s I always loved reading the letters columns, especially when you'd get a letter from the top-tier letterhacks like Uncle Elvis or T. M. (The Mad) Maple. It really brought in a sense of community, but also makes me regret that I personally have yet to send in a fan letter. Today, I still enjoy scanning letters to get a feel for what the fans felt at the time, and to note letters from fans who went on to be pros.

again, boldface by me... The seller must have, because Dr. Balls was able to check out and pay for the book at an offer price. It wasn't until his other purchases arrived that he realized there was a problem. I'm not sure how long CL would wait before they initiated a claim. Presumably they assumed the book in question was en route. You're right that CL should have refunded by now. It's a ridiculous system we tolerate, but see it all the time. A few months ago my hotel was supposed to be paid by for by my employer, but it wasn't. I paid myself, knowing I could get reimbursed. My employer sorted things out, and paid for the hotel room themselves after the fact. The hotel told me they would reverse the charges in 5-7 days. My card was charged in 5-7 MINUTES, my reverse is in 5-7 DAYS. I still got mad at my employer's travel coordinator instead.

Boldface added by me. CL should have refunded days ago, agreed. However, the original seller DID apparently want to deal with CL, as he volunteered his book for the Exchange and even actively accepted an offer on it days before simply trading the book to someone else. One of these is an unpleasant business practice, one of these is an explicit violation of a contract. If this had happened on eBay, and a seller accepted a best offer and then said "nuts to you" but Paypal had to wait for official resolution to reverse the charges, that seller would be facing probation or a HoS nomination and Paypal would get an eyeroll at worst.

Depending on how finely you slice it, I think mysterymachine got it immediately. Danger Girl #1 had an Another Universe exclusive cover with the "Another Universe" logo in March 1998, followed by an AU exclusive Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1 in Sept 98 and #2 in Oct 98. I think Dynamic Forces started getting exclusive covers around this same time. Maybe this is the "prototype" phase of the cover variants exclusive to one retailer? I read somewhere the Star Wars: Dark Empire gold foil logo sets were exclusive to QVC or HSN back in 1992. Maybe these don't meet the OP's intent with the "current store exclusive thing," but they're definitely examples of variant covers unique to a single retailer.

Two people were willing to pay up to $18 plus shipping for a 3.0? Still taking a loss on the cost of grading, but I'm surprised anyone would pay for it at all. I checked to see if it was downgraded for unwitnessed signatures or some other justification... nope, it's just a well-read kid's copy like so many I have from the old days. Which is fine, plenty of people grade their personal nostalgia copies, but how does it end up on Comiclink?

Just to help with the comparison, according to Comichron the average cover price of the Diamond top seller's list (304 comics) was $2.14 for April 1993 (https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/1993/1993-04Diamond.html) and the average cover price for the top 300 was $4.80 for April 2022 (https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2022/2022-04.html) This particular inflation calculator (https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/) says $2.14 in 1993 would be worth $4.33 in 2022, so it's actually really close as far as that goes. Might be better to then take those numbers and compare it to real wages or something to figure out what percentage of an average household income would be spent on comics, but that's a lot of work to likely result in "it's pretty close."

Start a new thread: "Where in the world was the quality control at Marvel?" The "legacy" numbers were interesting for characters like Venom, who had so many limited series and one-shots, but failed miserably for others, like Thor, which counted Journey into Mystery 1-82, prior to Thor's introduction, in order to accelerate the count to a big 700 issue. The first 99 issues of Tales of Suspense were also counted twice, once for Captain America and once for Tales of Suspense: Hawkeye and Winter Soldier. But as for Miles, here's their math, which includes issues of Ultimate Spider-Man prior to the introduction of Miles, but not Ultimate Fallout, which actually introduced Miles:

It's Marvel's newest way to have their cake and eat it too. Whichever numbering system gets to an "anniversary" they can do a special double-priced issue. For example, here is the 10th issue of the series you referenced, with the "250" prominently displayed...

Ultimate Spider-Man 241 is the "Legacy" title and number of the issue. The 241 is there on the front cover under the big 1that's there to bait people into buying it. Unless there's something else?

I had a similar situation a while back... I submitted a book I estimated would be a 9.0/9.2 but it came back in 9.8 with multiple visible flaws. I did not feel like I could justifiably sell it without expecting a return, so I took it in-hand to a convention, found a big dealer, and worked out a trade. He had the slab in hand when he made his trade valuation offer, so had every opportunity to review the book inside and accept or reject the deal. As others have said, it was submitted and graded as normal, I just didn't think I could sell it without dealing with returns.