It’s time to continue my deep dive into my comic book collection, which had been in storage for years and now sits in the hallway closet, almost completely inaccessible unless I move everything out.
Amazingly, I only needed about 6 months to finish this latest box, when the last
of this project took me almost a full year. Progress!
This latest longbox full of comics was, admittedly, a bit of a letdown when it comes to value of the comics and even in hidden surprises. With a few exceptions, it was mostly mid-2000s comics that I really had little recollection of buying, let alone reading. It seems the comic book reseller market has mostly forgotten about that time as well, because there was very little to get excited about.
As a reminder, I decided to use Comic Book Realm, a free comics database website to help me organize the books. The service helps me keep track of what I have in my collection and gives me an estimate of what the books are worth, so all values listed here are based on what the site tells me.
Boys Club
The top of the single-issue value pile this time around was issue 3 of THE BOYS, published by DC Comics imprint Wildstorm back in 2006. The first 6 issues of the series were put out by DC Comics before they got a little antsy about the violence, swearing, nudity and social commentary in the Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson comic. After that, it was picked up by Dynamite, where the property continues to live (The latest issue of spinoff sequel series, The Boys: Dear Becky, was released this past Wednesday).
With the upswing in popularity of THE BOYS coming out of the Amazon Prime series that just finished its second season, it’s no wonder that the value of the comics are trending upwards, with the DC Comics issues seeing the most value rising. The first issue of the comic, which I NOTED was running at $35 back in 2017, is now up to $80. The third issue, which was in this box, is listed at $50. The fourth issue, which was also found here, is an additional $10.
Now if only I could figure out why the series is separated the way it is.
A Different Kind of Seven
The Boys faced off against the super hero group known as The Seven, and when Grant Morrison took over the JLA in 1996, he used the heroes collectively known as “The Big Seven.” But DC comics introduced a different kind of Seven in 1995, which never really stood the test of time.
Chris Clairemont and Dwayne Turner’s Sovereign Seven was the first non-Superman title I started buying regularly back in the early days of my reading and collecting. The series followed a group of seven royals – completely new characters – from different worlds throughout the galaxy who were exiled to Earth. I enjoyed the series a lot while it was kept separate from the larger DC Universe, but crossovers started to bog the series down. Eventually, after one of the members of the group was killed off, Power Girl was added to the team and it was all downhill from there. Sovereign Seven was cancelled in 1998 after 36 issues and a couple of specials/annuals, pretty much never to be heard from again.
I found the entire run of the series in the latest long box. According to the cataloguing website, it’s worth about $121.
No Laughing Matter
Hailed as a classic Superman story almost from the day it was released, Action Comics #775 – “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?” – featured the Man of Steel coming up against a new brand of hero. The Authority-type metahumans known as the Elite, led by MANCHESTER BLACK, were challenging the way Superman did things, proactively taking down threats and killing those they deemed to be too dangerous. It set up a confrontation where Black tried to undermine the good that Superman did by goading Metropolis’ hero into killing.
It didn’t work.
The story by Joe Kelly with art by the always-amazing Doug Mahnke has endured for almost 20 years now, getting an animated movie adaptation (Superman vs. The Elite) and worked into an episode of SUPERGIRL, which introduced Manchester Black as a character in season 4.
A first edition of Action Comics 775 is listed at $12, which I think is ridiculously low, but whatever…
The Collection
Let’s take a look at where the totals stand after going through the fourth box in my collection. Totals for all five boxes (and likely some value changes) are in parenthesis.
Total Issues: 322 (2,061)
Paid: $768.22 ($5,555.78)
Current Value: $1,174.50 ($9,096.25)
Profit: $406.28 ($3,540.47)
Value Per Issue: $3.65 ($4.41)