Marvel Feature #1

Marvel - Dec. 1971

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of The Defenders
"Death" of Yandroth

Netflix has finally started to film their long awaited series The Defenders. The series will feature their already established characters of Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and the soon to be introduced Iron Fist.

Let me start off by saying that none of the characters in the show, are the original members of the team that appear in the comics. However, all of the characters that will be appearing in the show were considered a Defender at one time or another, with the exception of Jessica Jones.

So, if none of those characters were the original members, then who were? Well, the answer, is right on the cover of this issue. The trio of superheroes is Doctor Strange, Namor, and the Incredible Hulk.

Dr. Stephen Strange sits in front of a warm fire at his home, when he hears a voice calling his name. He leaves his physical body and searches for the mystery caller.

Yandroth

His search leads him to a hospital, where he recognizes the evil scientist Yandroth, lying in a bed, dying. Before he dies, he tells Doctor Strange about the Omegatron, which is a machine that he built that will destroy the Earth upon his death, a death that he had planned. Strange does what he can to save Yandroth, but fails and the evil scientist dies. Now with little time left, he tries to find help to save the world.

The first character he recruits is the Price of Atlantis, Namor. Strange comes across Namor, and tells him of Yandroth's evil plan, and the prince quickly agrees to help. 

Knowing that the two of them isn't enough, he seeks out one more superhero to help. The Hulk just happens to be close by and Strange pretty much tricks the Jade Giant into helping.

The Defenders

In a nutshell, that's how the team comes together. I hate giving away too much of these stories, especially if people want to read it, so I'll end it right there. I will tell you that The Defenders do find the Omegatron and save the the day, in true superhero fashion. I'm just not going to tell you how they do it. Also, the Hulk leaves the team at the end of the issue, just like he did when he was with the Avengers.

This is a well known key issue, and in no way under the radar. There are a lot of already graded copies out there. According to the CGC census, there have been 938 copies graded by them. Most of the copies are high grade between 8.0 VF and 9.4 NM. There are some 9.6 NM+ (46) and 9.8 NM/M (11) copies out there too. Since there isn't a census on the CBCS website yet, there's no way of telling how many copies there are out there by them, but there are a handful floating around out there.

Values for Marvel Feature #1
on GoCollect

Values for this comic are up there now, ever since the hype from the upcoming Netflix show, but it's not like it was a bargain bin comic before that. Back in 2012, a CGC 9.8 NM/M copy sold at Heritage Auctions for $1,314.50, and in the same year, the Twin Cities Pedigree 9.8 NM/M copy ended up selling for $1,912. Fast forward to right now, pending sales at Comic Link for the same grade jump up to over the $8,000 mark. There has been a similar trend with 9.4 NM copies. Back in 2012, you could snag a copy for a little over $300. Now you'll be paying over twice that much. A copy sold for $664.44 in March of this year, and the last sale blew up to $925 in July. To say that this is a hot comic would be an understatement.

Since this is a hype comic at the moment, I'll expect values to continue to jump up for the time being. I'm pretty sure that once the next hot comic movie news hits, you'll see prices come down a little. How low it goes is beyond me. I guess it will depend if the show is any good or not.

Find a copy here
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Amazing Spider-Man #50 - CBCS 7.0

Marvel - July 1967

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Kingpin (Wilson Fisk)

I'd like to share another comic from my personal collection with you. I don't only write these posts up to show you what I have, but I also do it to give you an idea of the process that I go through when I decide to buy these comics.

There are a few reasons that I decided on this comic. The first is that I am a big fan of Spider-Man. I've stated that on here before. Ever since I bought that first Spidey comic when I was a kid, I've been hooked on the character. 

The second reason I bought this comic is because of the cover. I really like this cover that was done by the legendary artist John Romita Sr. It's probably not the best cover that he's done, but something about it really catches my eye. John Romita Sr. is very well known for the art that he did on his run on Amazing Spider-Man.

The final reason is that this is a good investment comic. A lot of the earlier ASM comics from the Silver Age introduced new characters that are still quite popular and relevant today. You can't really go wrong if you're looking for one of these to add to your collection.

This comic had been on my radar for a long time, but there are always other comics to be had so I put this one on the back burner for a while. It seems like I do that a lot. It wasn't until news came out that Kingpin was going to be the big baddie in the Netflix Daredevil series that I had to get serious about adding this to my collection.

I did my searches on eBay, like usual, and one day I came across an nice looking raw copy. I don't remember what grade that the seller had it listed at, if he had one listed at all. I don't usually pay attention to what sellers have listed anyway, because there are a lot of sellers that over grade their comics to try to make the most money from the suckers that don't know how to grade a book. I used to be like that, but have since gotten better at determining a grade.

There were a lot of nice high resolution pictures for me to look at, and I thought this copy looked pretty nice. It was a "buy it now" with a "best offer" option. So, I went on over to GoCollect to see what copies in the range of grades that I thought the comic might be in. For example, I thought the comic was probably between the grades of 6.0 F to a 7.0 F/VF. I usually look at the lowest grade and make an offer off of those sale prices.

So I made the seller an offer based off of the recent sales of a 6.0 F. Already graded copies at that grade were selling for the $250 to $300 at that time, so I decided to offer the seller $225. Luckily for me, he accepted my offer.


When I got it in the mail, it thought it looked about as good, if not slightly better than in the photos, and soon after I got it, I sent it in to CBCS with a bunch of other books. I think we can all see the end result. I was honestly expecting it to come back a 6.0 F or, more likely, a 6.5 F+, so I was very happy to see that 7.0 F/VF on the label. I was also lucky enough to snag a copy before it got out of my price range.

Find a copy here
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Silver Surfer #3

Marvel - Dec. 1968

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Mephisto

The latest buzz going around at the moment has to do with the upcoming Netflix show The Defenders. There's a rumor going around that the big baddie in the show is going to be none other than Mephisto. I have no idea how credible this rumor is, but it's being said that Marvel wants to expand the supernatural element to their shows, eventually making way for Ghost Rider, Blade and Moon Knight to have series' of their own, or at least make some appearances.

Mephisto is yet another of a long line of creations by Stan "the man" Lee and John Buscema. They based the character on Mephistopheles, a demon character from the Faust legend.

In this issue of The Silver Surfer, Mephisto feels the power of the Sentinel of the Spaceways purity and kindness, and seeks him out to destroy him. He finds the Shalla Bal, the long lost love of Norrin Radd, and imprisons her in his dark realm. Norrin Radd is the true name of the Silver Surfer.

The Silver Surfer follows them to Mephisto's lair to rescue her. Little does he know that Mephisto used Shalla Bal to lure him there. While there, Mephisto tries to entice the Silver Surfer to become his servant by offering him unimaginable wealth and power, but, of course, that fails so Mephisto then tries to destroy him.

In the battle between the two, we get to see how powerful Mephisto really is, but he's no match against the power and goodness of The Silver Surfer, and in the end he defeats Mephisto, but not before Shalla Bal is sent back across the universe and far out of the reach of the Silver Surfer, leaving him alone and heart broken.

There is also a backup story featuring The Watcher. It's a recreation of the story "Why won't the believe me?" that was originally printed in Amazing Adult Fantasy #7.

Most of the copies that you will find online are going to be raw copies, but there are a few slabbers thrown in there too. As of right now, there have been 775 copies graded by CGC. That's a pretty good amount, but it's far from a lot. Hopefully CBCS will have a census soon so I can get a little more of an accurate number of graded copies out there, but for now, the CGC census will have to do.

There are quite a few high grade copies between 8.0 VF through 9.8 NM/M according to the census, but only three are graded at the highest 9.8 NM/M. The most abundant grade at this point is an 8.5 VF+ with 98 copies.

Values of Silver Surfer #3 on GoCollect

Sales for this issue have been inconsistent over the past two years. Some grades have seen an nice increase in value, mostly higher grades, while some other grades have seen a decrease. Obviously, if you can afford a higher grade, then that's what you should focus on. Higher grade comics will have a better chance of rising in value over their lower grade counterparts, and who doesn't want a nice looking copy in their collections.

Buying a high grade copy of The Silver Surfer #3 won't break the bank either. The latest sale of a 9.6 MN+ graded book sold for $958, just under the $1,000 mark. You should be able pick up a nice 9.0 VF/NM copy for less than $500, and probably less if you can find it for auction as opposed to a buy it now. If you have a budget of around $200, you should be looking at copies around the 7.5 VF- or 8.0 VF range.

Even though it's only a whisper of a rumor, and not even close to being confirmed in any way, this comic could see a boost in value. Every little whisper of a character appearing in a T.V. show or movie has some comic values shooting through the roof. Will it happen to this comic too? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Find a copy here
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Amazing Spider-Man #129

Marvel - Feb. 1974

Key Issue Notes
1st appearance of the Punisher
1st appearance of the Jackal


I just started watching season 2 of Daredevil on Netflix and I must say I'm really liking it so far. As most of us know, season 2 introduces us to Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher, and Amazing Spider-Man #129 has his 1st appearance.

Amazing Spider-Man #129 also has the first appearance of Miles Warren as The Jackal. The Jackal isn't a hugely popular villian in the Marvel Universe, but he does play an important role in the Spider Clone saga, but that is another story that I'll get to at another time. Just in case you were wondering, the first appearance of Miles Warren is in Amazing Spider-Man #31. 

The Punisher starts out as an antagonist for everyone's favorite web slinger. He's hired by The Jackal to get Spider-Man out of the picture, but eventually, The Punisher realizes that Spidey isn't the bad guy that The Jackal made him out to be.

There's no shortage of graded copies of ASM #129 out there. There are a staggering 6956 copies graded by CGC so far. I'm sure there are even more with CBCS and PGX copies out there. Unfortunately there isn't any census data from those two companies. Hopefully they will have a census soon. There are 91 copies graded at 9.8 NM/M by CGC. Wow!! Of those 91 copies, 4 are Signature Series and 1 is a Restored copy. You should have no problems finding a nice high grade copy to add to your collection but don't expect it to be cheap.

Values for Amazing
Spider-Man #129
on GoCollect

Even with a large number of graded copies out there, Amazing Spider-Man #129 is a very sought out comic and has been for a long time. The Punisher is definitely a lot of peoples favorite anti-hero. If you're looking to get a nice high grade copy you should expect to shell out some bucks for it as CGC 8.5 VF+ copies are starting to sell around the $900-$1000 range and CGC 9.4 NM copies are going for well over $2000 now. It's not a rare or hard to find comic but as you can see from the chart on the right,  demand for this book is high and all grades are in the green and way above the average sales. You may want to do what I did and take a chance on a raw copy. That could save you a little bit of money, but you never know if you're buying a comic that is complete or if it's been restored. I'll leave that decision up to you.

Find a copy here
eBay - ComicLink - MyComicShop - ComicConnect