Qalyar

I assume these are the Superman equivalents of the pre-DCU books with the Bat logo. That is to say, distributed in poorly documented multi-packs. Of course, I also know what happens when I assume... For the record, there's at least one more version of Superman Adventures 1, the Doritos promotional reprint, but it has entirely different cover art. Just noting for purposes of completion here.

Ah! I've seen a lot of pretty curly copies of that book, but never owned it myself, so didn't know why! I wonder if there was ever any warehouse stock that didn't get shipped this way, or if we'd just have to get lucky with a decent-quality copy that presses out well? There are two 9.6 copies on the census, for the record. Ah, yes, that's a strong contender. 1994, though. That was indeed personalized. In fact, there are two different versions of X-Men and Captain Universe: Sleeping Giants, with Captain Universe drawn as male or female. CGC, to my personal frustration, indicates that "Male & female versions exist" on the label, but does not distinguish between them. Predictably, the female Captain Universe is the scarcer of the options.

Obviously, if you're into variants and the like, there are CPVs, 30 cent price variants, and 35 cent price variants, some of which are genuinely challenging books. As far as unique publications go, I think you may be correct. Marvel didn't really take an interest in using the X-Men for weird promotional stuff until well into the 90s, for the most part. There are a few 80s giveaways and promos, but none of them are particularly hard to find. That Texas State Fair thing is quite common, at least for min-grade copies. So is Uncanny X-Men: Madness in Murderworld (1989), which was a pack-in with a PC/Tandy video game by Paragon Software (fun fact: Mark Bagley co-wrote). Amazing Spider-Man and the New Mutants Featuring Skids (1990) was a child abuse awareness giveaway that was a K-Mart exclusive, but there's no shortage of them around. Same goes for the two (!!) Spider-Man, Firestar, and Iceman books, which are already stretching the definition of "an X-Men book" -- one is Danger in Denver (1981), the other is At the Dallas Ballet Nutcracker (1982). The latter is maybe the rarer of the two? I don't know, both are easy pickups. Sorry I can't scare up some weird chase promotional in that range.

Definitely an X-Men-based promotional, but there's nothing rare about that thing. The Dallas Times Herald distributed about eleventy jillion of those.

Obviously, I needed something to burn time on today. This sentence stuck with me. Obviously, none of the core X-Men books are actually rare. Some of them are valuable. A few of them are very valuable. But that doesn't make them rare. But is there any book featuring the X-Men, or at least featuring an X-Man, that is? I went ahead and included Modern stuff here. Obviously, though, variants, weird printings, and the like don't count; there's plenty of those that are quite scarce (by design) and equally expensive on the secondary market. So that rules out the Pressman books, the Wolverine v3 #1 Retailer Incentive (in the Deadpool suit), and so forth. Turns out, there are at least a few books that aren't "rare" in the Overstreet sense, but might require a bit of hunting to acquire. Most of these aren't expensive, because demand is low, but that doesn't make them easy to find. Wolverine 102.5 (1996) was a mail-away promotion via partnership with Fleer, the trading card company. This one's special because it's apparently legitimate considered in-continuity, which a lot of these weird one-off things aren't. These have attracted enough attention lately that there are quite a few on the market, although prices are creeping upward. X-Men: Life Lessons (2007). This was produced as a partnership between Marvel and the Starbright Foundation charity, featuring the story of a mutant who is badly burned in the Danger Room and faces difficulties returning to his normal life as a result of his scarred face. Most copies were distributed to health care settings to be given out to children in burn wards. As of my post, there's one copy on ebay. Ultimate Spider-Man / Ultimate X-Men (2009). This was commissioned by Marvel from New York ad mega-agency BBDO and their client Campbell's Soup. It features a diversity and inclusion story, entitled "Heroes Welcome", by Brian Michael Bendis. Right now, there's one copy on ebay, and it's a sad beater. I have this nagging feeling that there's something older that belongs on this list that I know about but am stridently failing to remember. EDIT: If you're into weird promotionals and rare variants, that Life Lessons book exists in both English and Spanish versions. The latter wasn't for foreign distribution, but to be given out to burned kids whose primary language was Spanish. It is markedly rarer than the English one.

No, no, the first appearance of Krang in comics is here. Well, probably. There are, of course, Krang-looking characters as far back as TMNT 3 (the Utroms). Krang, as a named villain, didn't exist; he was explicitly invented for the the animated TV series, and then back-adapted to that book above. The Utroms in TMNT 3 are clearly precursor characters, but I don't think that pushes the first appearance back any more than the existence of The Heap in Air Fighters Comics 3 affects the first appearance of Man-Thing or Swamp Thing or any of the other sundry swamp monsters. Also, I've just been informed that this Krang has nothing at all to do with that Krang. Carry on!

The 1981 comic. It can't be the 1979 book, because the 1979 book doesn't exist. There was artwork for those pages, but "first appearance in comic book artwork" is not "first appearance in comics". Gotta have an actual comic to be in a comic. And it can't be the 1992 comic, because -- chronologically -- that character had already appeared. To sort of underscore why that's the only sane outcome, imagine for a moment that, tomorrow, a copy of the 1933 version of Superman, famously rejected for publication by Consolidated and then destroyed by Shuster (except for the cover), was discovered to still exist. And, of course, was promptly published. Just as the surviving 1933 cover does not beat out Action Comics 1 as the first appearance of Superman, neither would the 2022 publication of a Superman story that was written -- but not published -- before AC1 hit the press.

While I'm aware that popular convention and the market occasionally disagree with this, it tends to be my personal philosophy also. Pre-"first appearance" advertisements are cool and all, but "first appearance" means "first appearance in comics". An advertisement is not an appearance in a comic; it is an appearance in an advertisement in a comic book. Because comic books, it's sometimes a bit complicated, like when they retcon a character's identity or do something different with a previously-existing character (Hank Pym vs. Ant-Man). If a bit wordy, I like the "First appearance of Hank Pym, who later became Ant-Man" verbiage for that sort of thing.

Agreed. Sketch covers gonna look sketchy. And, sure, I have absolutely no idea at all how that gun is being held... but maybe it's actually just built into the armor and so doesn't need to be held. Regardless, there's one entire hand with functional, articulated fingers. And the body has overall dimensions that don't seem entirely inappropriate for a human-sized robot suit. That's more than Cable got on the Second Genesis cover, or either character got on the Badrock #1B cover.

Indeed, not all types of fingerprints can be reliably removed.

...but seriously, if you can't remove the book and board freely, you might be overdoing it.

I know this book is extremely rare, but I also didn't think general demand for it was high enough to make a meaningful FMV. But, hey, look at me being surprised. EverQuest Online Adventures: The Search for Darkpaw. eBay auction hammer price? $1690, and, no, not to me! Three bidders over $1k, two bidders over $1500, so this wasn't just one maniac, either. https://www.ebay.com/itm/265649699667

In particular, I think the LR cover corner (razor sharp!) seems incompatible with the rounded LR pages beneath it.

John Byrne used to "sign" facsimile and reprint books with a custom rubber stamp of his signature that he had produced for expressly that purpose. Always makes me laugh.

Most of the books posted here with questions about possible trimming are miswraps and miscuts that I wouldn't be overly worried about. I'd be worried about this one, I think.

It's a very 90s Image collection. Spawn, Witchblade, and Darkness were all good at least at times. Savage Dragon tends to be a like-or-pass book; it never clicked for me, but it's been around forever and has a dedicated following. Battle Chasers would have been really good if there were more of it, but Joe Mad apparently lost interest in his own title, or something, so what we have is exceptionally unfinished. Oh, and Astro City is fantastic. More people should read Astro City. It's not a bad chunk of comics reading at the price, for certain.

Right? Popular playable character? Check. Final boss and mascot of the franchise? Check. Random enemy from Act II? Um... check, I guess?? It's so odd that they didn't opt for like Mephisto or something. But I do think it's a pretty cool sculpt.

That's a pretty cool figure! I know there where at least a couple others in that 2000 series. I think the Diablo one is the most common? This one definitely isn't. Nice find! I'll take responsibility for your interest, haha!

Yeah, the UL corner made the grader's notes, too (as did the creasing below the tear). At this grade, I suppose this missing chunk probably slips in as acceptable on a blue (rather than green) label. In part, I think that's helped by being random damage; purposefully-removed cover elements seem to get green labels with less affected area. Anyway, nice book notwithstanding the damage

I would not try to press that 9.6 into a 9.8, because I think it won't go up, and might go down. The problem isn't the color registration nor the miscut, neither of which are defects in CGC's parlance. The problem is along the spine, especially at a point around the level of Superman's knees. Something something lighting and all, but that looks in this picture like a little bit of color loss. In any case, it's not a pressable issue. And lest I come off the wrong way, that's a fantastic book, as is the NYWF. All of them, really.

My biggest problem with this system remains the fact that it can break up series. Some foreign runs mix localized US covers with original art covers, varying by issue. Or, alternatively, adapt US covers throughout -- but not always covers from the same US title (the Mexican western compilation books did this, iirc). Or when they use US covers out of order. It's clear that CGC sometimes realizes that would result in total nonsense. For example, the Kitchen Sink Press / Fantagraphics series Black Hole, reprinted in German by Reprodukt as... well, Black Hole. Each German issue is a double-sized squarebound book that includes two of the US issues. CGC actually labelled and slabbed all of these in the way that makes sense, titled Black Hole #1, "German Edition", and a note saying "Contains Black Hole #1-2" (for example). As an aside: super stoked that the full run ended up in 9.8; the last two had to have an ugly bend -- that was 100% Reprodukt's fault, because they were sleeved in the slipcase incorrectly -- pressed out. So what's the problem? Well, arguably, that's not how this CGC policy says these should be labeled. See, the six German issues use slightly modified versions of the covers of US issues #7, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11 respectively. No, I have no idea why the German Black Hole #1 uses the cover from a US issue not contained in that book. But regardless, if labels were strictly by the US cover equivalent, these should have had that weird, nonsensical, out-of-order numbering. Obviously, I'm very glad they didn't do that to these books, because that would be amazingly dumb. But there are other titles where it sure sounds like that's exactly what we should expect.

Sure, but it's one that's easier to fix. If done correctly, no data about the slabbed book is lost; a field in the database is merely set to indicate revocation and the lookup tool modified to respond accordingly. If the book holder can demonstrate that the revocation was in error, flip the bit, and things are fine. Data management errors of this sort are much easier to fix than this wrong-UF4-in-the-wild sort of debacle.

Separate topic. Counterfeits that are considered, in and of themselves, to be collectible are not unique to comic collecting. There are quite a few examples of both stamps and coins that are "collectible counterfeits". Off the top of my head, there's an entire specialist collection to be had in government-forged stamps from WWII, and the Henning nickel is reasonably popular. With the Cerebus, Cry for Dawn, and TMNT counterfeits -- if everything is done correctly, at least -- CGC is not only saying that these are not the legitimate books, but that they are the specific, well-known (and thus collectible) counterfeits. That's very different from an authentication service that can't seem to read printed edition numbers on a lot of books...

If nothing else, this sort of -up by the grading floor is just another example of why CGC needs to set a policy of revoking certification numbers for books they can clearly establish as being invalidly labeled. That doesn't stop someone from getting taken advantage of looking at the slab in isolation, but it would at least mean anyone using the certification lookup feature on the website would know what's going on. If they're feeling particularly generous (which they should), then any slab whose certification shows as REVOKED should be eligible for free regrading and re-encapsulation (as, you know, whatever the book should be). Then we just try to establish "check the cert lookup" as best practices for buyers in the community and, presto, the problem (sort of) resolves itself. I mean, aside from the people already badly done by.

I've always thought this one of the best Cole covers. Too bad it's both extremely hard to find at all, and commensurately priced when you do.