to those of you reading/collection when X-men 94 hit the newsstands... 1 1

[tth2]

On 5/6/2024 at 7:40 PM, namisgr said:

For context, this was the X-Men issue on the racks before the new series began.  It's a reprint of X-Men #45, and my original copy bought at the time.  I think it helps explain why comic buyers and readers of the day may have overlooked ish 94:

Yup, it had been a reprint series for a while (which was fine for me back then as it introduced me to SA X-Men), and maybe even moved to bi-monthly status.  And then it went on hiatus for a few months, and I do not remember there being any announcement or ads for the reboot.  It was just pure luck that I happened to come across it at the airport newsstand.

[shadroch]

X-Men 93 was part of a multi-issue story arc.  Magneto and his henchmen had captured the X-Men, and only the Angel escaped- to go find help.  Issue 93 ends with Magneto defeating the X-Men, only to have the Avengers show up in the last panel..... to be continued.   Only it wasn't continued in X-Men 94.  A  blurb in 94 leads one to think the story would be finished in the next GS X-Men, but it wasn't. To complicate things, X-Men 93 reprinted X-Men 45, but the story wasn't continued in X-Men 46 but switched over to the Avengers for the conclusion. As far as I know, Marvel never did reprint the ending. That left me less than pleased, as I had to go track down the original stories to finish reading it.  It's not a big deal today, but it took me well over a year to identify and find a copy of the Avengers issue the story concluded in.

[shadroch]

When it came out, I subscribed to both CGC( a bi-weekly newspaper at this point) and a fan newsletter I don't recall the name of. Both of them had been promoting the new International X-Men team for months before it debuted.  It wasn't as hyped as Howard The Duck was and would have done much better if they'd started over with a first issue.  First issues were huge back then.

[Q.N.S.]

As someone said earlier, it became more popular shortly after, when it was changing the X-Men title, but to ask how big it was in that small window in summer before X-Men 94 was out, you'd have to either be a fan already of that book, or be an adult that was already wise on hopping on new comics, which was not nearly as much a thing in 1975, even as it was just 4-5 years later, when the shops were opening and lots of baseball card places began stocking comics, and the in-shop discussions about them grew among normal customers.. this was when it became plain to all... and was moving... so, inside the industry it certainly was, but not so much in the public. The reaction times were a lot lazier. It would interesting to see how long it took Overstreet to rate that book over 50 dollars.  I was just a kid, but I was already buying comics. The comics I liked never went up like that one. Almost nobody read or bought comics in '75 unless they were kids or buying for kids, outside of a tiny minority of adults who would stuff their comics under the newspaper... the cashier would say, "how old is your son", if you checked it out by yourself...  But you know, I did even at that age buy #1's, unfortuntely they were Ragman and Starfire. Heck, I went to the movies and loved Star Wars, but didn't press my mother and say, I need Star Wars #1 !! It just wasn't like that. I eventually would get #10 off the rack, but I don't remember any of this being a bigger deal until the early '80s. 

Edited May 6 by Q.N.S.

[namisgr]

There were more young adults buying comics in the early 1970s than you might imagine. Unlike 10 years earlier, certain comic titles had appeal to young adults both for their storytelling and the quality of the artwork.  I bought Hulk 181, Giant-Size X-Men 1 and X-Men 94 when I was in college.  There was a news agency right on campus that stocked all the new Marvels and DCs not on spinner racks, but tiered wooden shelves.  And I believe it was the young adults buying, reading, and storing books back at that time with great care (much more so than how pre-teens read and stored them) that accounts for the much, much larger number of copies surviving until today in near mint and better condition than is true for early and mid Silver Age books.

As for buying multiple copies of new issues for speculation purposes, I know lots of the older regular buyers did so, but the selected issues were usually number 1s of new titles, especially those with famous creators.  It's worth a good chuckle to remember the books I bought multiples of back then: #1s of OMAC, Sandman, Shadow, Invaders, PP Spectacular Spiderman, Man Thing, and Iron Fist.  Not exactly books to have gotten rich on.    Swamp Thing #1 would have been a good choice, but I was a predominant Marvel guy and frankly didn't know Berni Wrightson from a hole in the wall when that ish hit the stands.

Edited May 7 by namisgr

[Q.N.S.]

On 5/7/2024 at 7:00 AM, namisgr said:

There were more young adults buying comics in the early 1970s than you might imagine. Unlike 10 years earlier, certain comic titles had appeal to young adults both for their storytelling and the quality of the artwork.  I bought Hulk 181, Giant-Size X-Men 1 and X-Men 94 when I was in college.  There was a news agency right on campus that stocked all the new Marvels and DCs not on spinner racks, but tiered wooden shelves.  And I believe it was the young adults buying, reading, and storing books back at that time with great care (much more so than how pre-teens read and stored them) that accounts for the much, much larger number of copies surviving until today in near mint and better condition than is true for early and mid Silver Age books.

As for buying multiple copies of new issues for speculation purposes, I know lots of the older regular buyers did so, but the selected issues were usually number 1s of new titles, especially those with famous creators.  It's worth a good chuckle to remember the books I bought multiples of back then: #1s of OMAC, Sandman, Shadow, Invaders, PP Spectacular Spiderman, Man Thing, and Iron Fist.  Not exactly books to have gotten rich on.    Swamp Thing #1 would have been a good choice, but I was a predominant Marvel guy and frankly didn't know Berni Wrightson from a hole in the wall when that ish hit the stands.

True, but even among the collegiate-aged, it was less than it would evolve into, I reckon. Nobody I knew as a child was buying comics in their 20's. They were into music and going out, and work and drinking.  It was before DWI laws. Bars were always jam-packed and there were like 5X as many of them as there are now. 

I was thinking about real adults, like us, or people in their 30s and 40s, not 18-22 year old college students. Personally, I stopped around that time, in college. I had way too much other stuff to read and write, and taking notes in class, huge notebooks, as you are fully aware what it was like. It's possible also that I didn't like the new stuff as much. There was a shift in the 80's concerning comics where the beginning to the middle, then the ending years are really quite different, not just in the paper but the content delivered which probably figured into me putting them on hiatus. 

 

Edited May 7 by Q.N.S.

[jimjum12]

On 5/6/2024 at 12:35 AM, MattTheDuck said:

I was not buying X-Men off the rack at the time, although I had picked up a few back issues when I saw them at the LCS.  I'm pretty sure I never saw this issue either on the rack or in the back issue boxes.  I did get a #112 at some point.  #94 came out about a year before I waken up and started speculating on a few things (like Howard the Duck, Eternals, Nova, etc) which were, of course, precisely the wrong things on which to speculate.  Before that, it just never occurred to me, despite agreeing with the kids view that "these will be worth a million dollars some day!"  

I bought 5 mint copies of OMAC #1 ...it was Kirby, it HAD to be a winner. I did ,however, buy 3 copies of Thor 337 and 50 copies of ASM 361. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[mr_highgrade]

When X-men #94 came out I was 12 years old and not really buying comics. I had some comics from 1972-74 that my mom eventually threw out. Although, those were mostly Harveys with a sprinkle of Marvels, although no X-men. I started seriously buying comics in 1978 and didn't buy my first X-men comic until 1979. That was X-men #123 which I bought two copies. One from the newsstand and another from the comic shop. The only reason I bought it was because Spidey was on the cover. After that, I felt compelled to buy every issue thereafter. Most of the time I would buy at least 2 copies, a newsie and DE. With issue #133 I started buying 3 to 6 copies, including 20 copies of X-men #137.  I eventually picked up X-men #94 & 95 in 1986 from a Ernie Gerber auction that he ran on the Comics Buyers Guide that summer.

Years later the X-men #94 graded out 9.6 and issue #95 a 9.4.

[NoMan]

thank you to all that took the time to respond

 

[LowGradeBronze]

On 5/2/2024 at 5:55 AM, tth2 said:

.....But then Byrne took over, Wolverine suddenly became popular and everyone started getting into them.  That's when the prices of GSX 1 and UXM 94 started to skyrocket (relatively speaking). 

It was Byrne taking over that swung it for me. I'd given up buying current comics and was only buying 'old' comics at the time and a school friend said I should take a look at X Men, so I did and was pulled right back in. We reconnected recently (after many years,) and I reminded him that he was responsible for my renewed interest back then. Talking comics with childhood friends is a great way to be 14 again. 

Edited May 21 by LowGradeBronze