Kevlar568

Hello all, I have two CGC signature series Batman books signed by David Mazzucchelli - Batman #405 9.4 and Batman #406 9.2, both signed in 2007. I bought these at a collectibles/pawn store several years ago, and in my research I haven’t been able to find any other Mazzucchelli signed CGC books. It seems that he only did a few signings with CGC in the mid-2000’s. I have a chance this summer to potentially add Frank Miller’s signature to these books - I have gotten Miller to sign some of my daredevil books in the past. Do you guys think I should attempt to add Miller‘s signature to these? Or leave them as is? Will Mazzucchelli ever do another CGC signing? Does anyone else on the boards have Mazzucchelli signature series books? Anyways, Cheers 🤟

Ah I see! I misunderstood your point then. My apologies. You are saying that the hierarchy of the SA Marvel keys is primarily based on the prestige/popularity of the specific character/concept. Am I getting that right? If not please clarify. So if you love Spider-Man, AF15 is THE book. If you love Nightcrawler, GSX1 is THE book. if you love the X-Men team? It depends on which team is more important to you. I think I get it. Me personally I love the first team characters, Prof X and Cyclops and Jean and Beast (meh on Angel and Iceman - sorry! Lol) and I love Magneto. But I also place more importance and legacy/prestige on X1 being the FIRST - the first mutants, the first concept of humans vs mutant-kind, the first X-team. Obviously in terms of story/writing and art I would take the new GSX1/uncanny run, but I also love Kirby and his early SA stuff is charming.

Fair enough! Everyone has a preference and unique opinion towards these things I’m sure - one thing I will say is that I think it’s disingenuous to say that X-men 1 is not spun from the same “magic cloth” despite having the same creators and being released by the same company in the same time period, as well as being much more successful as a franchise than all other Marvels except maybe Spider-Man. It also seems strange to downplay Professor X/ Charles Xavier as a “non-mega-key superhero”, the founder of the X-men and one of the most popular and recognizable Marvel heroes, appearing in (checks google) 12 mainstream blockbuster Hollywood films in the last 20 years. I was going to type more about prof X but honestly his rep as a character speaks for itself - he is a mega key Marvel character. Another so called “non-mega-key superhero” who’s first appearance is in X-men #1: Marvel Girl - aka Jean Grey- aka the Phoenix/the Dark Phoenix and the mother of Cable(might be a clone of her?). Jean Grey is consistently ranked as one of the greatest superheroes of all time as well as a top 10 Marvel VILLAIN of all time as the Dark Phoenix. Again I think it’s disingenuous to call her a non-mega key Marvel character considering she is probably one of the most popular female Marvel heroes. I also disagree with X-men being “flavour of the day” - I think the franchise dominance of the last 40 years (the legendary and top-selling Cockrum/Claremont/Byrne run/s, X-men #1 (1991) Guinness World Record best selling comic, a blockbuster film featuring the X-men/mutant characters released by Hollywood every 1.6 years since the year 2000, Logan, Deadpool, and Deadpool 2 peaking at #1 and #3 for highest earning R-rated films of ALL TIME, DP2 and Logan both featuring professor X and mutant characters) I could go on...

Nice! I would love to get a low grade Fantastic Four #1 or #5 as my next mega key

Hello, and thank you very much for your reply! I sincerely appreciate a good dialogue chatting in-depth about silver age comic hierarchy. In placing Hulk 1 above X-1 I think you have some good points, like how the Hulk character has survived multiple new interpretations and modern takes and storylines. I agree that the Hulk character and concept are still being mined for great new ideas and stories, like the Immortal Hulk, the galactic planet hulk stuff etc. In response to your post I would like to add my reply to some of your assertions and provide my personal opinion - please forgive me as I don’t know how to quote sections of posts: “Hulk 1 has multiple important first appearances” True! There are several first appearances in the book, however I tend disagree with how much importance you place on the Banner/Hulk separation as being “TWO first appearances!” It’s a simple Jekyll/Hyde riff, of course they are two characters because it’s Kirby’s version of a classic plot. (Nothing wrong with that!) not to mention the majority of superheroes have alter egos. I don’t place much stock in the importance of Rick Jones, he always seemed to me like yet another boyhood sidekick who serves as a mouthpiece for the main character to play dialogue with. In an industry absolutely stuffed with teen/boy sidekicks, there are many more important and memorable versions of this character-type (Robin, Bucky, Speedy, Jimmy Olsen, Wally West etc) and I had to google “A-Bomb” as I’d never heard of that before, but I could just be out of touch. I doubt Rick Jones has many fans who are buying Hulk 1 to have his key book. Red Hulk and A-Bomb and She-Rulk all seem to have sprouted up after the 2008 Hulk film, perhaps trying to capitalize on the movie and hardly seem as important as any single first appearance from X-Men 1’s MULTIPLE iconic first appearance heroes (and villain - and team... and mutant concept etc) “Hulk was the first Marvel character to debut in a #1 of his own series” True! And it’s pretty cool and certainly adds a cool-factor to Hulk 1 as a key book - but the Hulk character was also the first Marvel character to lose his main title after only 6 issues and then play backup to Giant Man in Tales to Astonish. I don’t put much importance on the “character got their own mag!” thing in early SA Marvel, as we know Historically Marvel was handicapped by their competitor/distributor DC on how many titles they could publish - that’s why so many characters try-out first appearances where in their other anthology titles. “Cover uniqueness of the Man/Monster?” the Thing/Ben Grimm is similar and has his iconic “THIS MAN.. THIS MONSTER!” Issue, as well as the character coming first in FF1 and sharing some elements of the Jekyll/Hyde tropes (though not as direct as Hulk) I actually prefer the Thing/Ben over the Hulk/Banner for a man/monster character - I think he’s far more fleshed out in Lee/Kirby’s FF run than the Hulk ever was in the silver age (just my preference) “IH #1 is Marvel’s most iconic cover” Maybe! It’s definitely iconic, and beloved. Many people seem to like it over X-1, which is totally fine - it’s all a matter of preference and taste. I would love to own an IH#1 someday, and I am firmly in the cult of Jack Kirby. I enjoy X-1’s cover as it features not only the team in a proper superhero battle scene demonstrating some of their powers, but also has them dramatically facing off against the mysterious villain Magneto who is also displaying a mysterious super-power right on the cover. You get the brand new characters fighting and using super abilities - ON THE COVER! (Looking at you Strange Tales 110 - cough) “The Hulk is grey in issue 1” Yep, that’s a neat and important significance that adds to IH#1’s charm. I know they used the grey hulk again later in the 80’s, but I don’t really know much Hulk lore regarding the in-canon colour differences so please forgive my ignorance. All I know is they changed it in issue 2 because the grey didn’t print as well as they wanted so they switched to green and the rest is history. last but not least - “Hulk 1 is rarer” I believe I mentioned this in my original post, saying that “besides being rarer physically” what does the Hulk have over the X-men? Yes, Hulk 1 is rarer, harder to find in high grade, and the dark cover is much tougher. I still think the X-men characters and concept have proven to be the defining Marvel property (next to Spidey) for over 40 years. X-men simply has more going for it than Hulk in my opinion - but hey that’s just my opinion! and no, Magneto didn’t force me to post this I swear ! Haha Regardless of my opinion, Hulk 1 will probably continue to be the book with more prestige - but my personal top 3 would be FF1, AF15, X1.

Here's my ticket to the club! I picked this up in late January, before the Clink copies blew up the value. Glad I got it when I did - I love this book

Hello all! first time poster, long time lurker - I’ve been seriously collecting for about 20 years and recently picked up a gorgeous CGC 4.5 - a month ago (I’ll post a picture once I figure out how to!) On the topic of X1’s rank in the SA Marvel hierarchy, I personally feel that X1’s recent explosion is long overdue. While I appreciate and understand the more historical ranking of IH1 over it, I myself feel that the top 3 should probably be FF1, AF15, X1. FF1 is THE first SA “Marvel” book, it kicks off the legendary Kirby/Lee run that transitions Marvel from the atlas/monster era into superheroes, and the level of creativity and influence/characters and concepts that came from the SA FF run can never be overstated. AF15 needs no explanation, obviously Spider-Man is Marvel’s top dog and the sheer amount of books, characters, spin-offs, films/ branding makes Spider-Man arguably a top 3 comic book character period. Now I can understand from a historical/collecting standpoint having IH1 as a top 3 book, but outside of being a little older, perceived scarcity and a tougher dark cover - how does the Hulk character stack up? He’s a Jekyll/Hyde type monster character that helped bridge the gap between the Kirby monster books into the superhero books (along side FF’s Thing/Ben Grimm) with some Cold War atomic flair. The X-men, by comparison have near limitless storytelling possibilities with endless characters and concepts that continue to this day. Hulk has also been nowhere NEAR as popular or as influential as the X-men, where X1 gives you multiple important first appearances, the origin of the entire mutant concept, AND a villain first appearance in Magneto, who has arguably become a top 3 Marvel villain of all time. Think about every mutant character ever made in marvel tracing their origins directly back to X1. Think about every single version of an “X” team tracing its original back to X1. Yeah X-men’s original run was not as popular in the 60s, and it fell into reprints until GSX1, but the concept/brand has only grown larger decade after decade, where Hulk has had some time in the spotlight but is ultimately a lesser creation by comparison. But hey, that’s just my opinion

Hello all! first time poster, long time lurker - I’ve been seriously collecting for about 20 years and recently picked up a gorgeous CGC 4.5 - a month ago (I’ll post a picture once I figure out how to!) On the topic of X1’s rank in the SA Marvel hierarchy, I personally feel that X1’s recent explosion is long overdue. While I appreciate and understand the more historical ranking of IH1 over it, I myself feel that the top 3 should probably be FF1, AF15, X1. FF1 is THE first SA “Marvel” book, it kicks off the legendary Kirby/Lee run that transitions Marvel from the atlas/monster era into superheroes, and the level of creativity and influence/characters and concepts that came from the SA FF run can never be overstated. AF15 needs no explanation, obviously Spider-Man is Marvel’s top dog and the sheer amount of books, characters, spin-offs, films/ branding makes Spider-Man arguably a top 3 comic book character period. Now I can understand from a historical/collecting standpoint having IH1 as a top 3 book, but outside of being a little older, perceived scarcity and a tougher dark cover - how does the Hulk character stack up? He’s a Jekyll/Hyde type monster character that helped bridge the gap between the Kirby monster books into the superhero books (along side FF’s Thing/Ben Grimm) with some Cold War atomic flair. The X-men, by comparison have near limitless storytelling possibilities with endless characters and concepts that continue to this day. Hulk has also been nowhere NEAR as popular or as influential as the X-men, where X1 gives you multiple important first appearances, the origin of the entire mutant/ superior concept, AND a villain first appearance in Magneto, who has arguably become a top 3 Marvel villain of all time. Think about every mutant character ever made in marvel tracing their origins directly back to X1. Think about every single version of an “X” team tracing its original back to X1. Yeah X-men’s original run was not as popular in the 60s, and it fell into reprints until GSX1, but the concept/brand has only grown larger decade after decade, where Hulk has had some time in the spotlight but is ultimately a lesser creation by comparison. But hey, that’s just my opinion