Obscure gems are sometimes the best place to find the next big hit. TMNT for example.

Or Guardians of the Galaxy!

Fat Ninja only had five issues, so your friends have a 20% chance. If not, they can currently buy it in mint condition from Mile High for the staggering price of three dollars.  I got mine for fifty cents, back in the day...ground floor, suckers!

Vaporman87 wrote :
 

The Silver Centurian Armor was always my favorite Iron Man armor.
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Marvel Super Heroes Contest of Champions was one the first major crossovers along with The Death of Captain Marvel the first graphic novel for Marvel.



I remember when Secret Wars came out and it was cool to see all the heroes together. My favorite crossover was Fall of the Mutants I was blown away that it affected such non mutant books as Fantastic Four, Hulk, Power Pack, Captain America, Thor and Daredevil. Then all of the sudden there was a Marvel-wide crossover every other month and it got really old really fast.



That coupled with the introduction of variant covers started the beginning of the end of collecting for me. I was suckered along with all the others into buying all 4 variant covers of X-MEN 1 plus the double gate-fold that collected all the covers on one to own my own part of history. At the time I thought it was cool and didn't really care that it was the same book inside. It was an investment possibly my first as before I collected to read and have fun. Thank goodness that I amassed a lot of my books for cover price or free from relatives since now there is really no way I would drop thousands on some of the books I have. Imagine my surprise when everyone and their dog bought up all the X-MEN 1 copies in the thousands and the demand fell out and the price plummeted. Marvel made a killing and it was the most sold comic of all time but they forgot the law of supply and demand and hundred upon thousands of copies sit in 25 cent bins across the nation. Being good business for them they pumped out more special covers than ever before, foil, holograms, variants, limited, etc. and the values of all those #1s dropped. The final nail in the collecting coffin for me was when Wolverine lost his adamantium, and became some feral nose-less freak with bone claws and they started strip mining his history making it fully impossible for him to have done all that and been there not to mention conflicting stories and the oh so convenient memory implants to explain shoddy writing or poor research. The mystery made the man. He spoke multiple languages and was a spy and ninja. When he was suddenly in 20 titles monthly it destroyed any semblance of continuity and character development with his guest appearances taking precedence over his titular books or making him out to be a complete ass. In the end I hung up my hat and pursued the few holes in my collection of the older stories. I missed out on a lot of the goodness of the independent start up companies and the better paper and ink quality but completely avoided the tracing of other artist's work, and tracing of celebrities and porn that destroyed in my mind the purpose for comics as a happy medium of escapist literature for children and adult alike. I can still read my old books with my sons though.



As for Iron Man my twin brother got all of those issues when we divided up the collection. He also got most of the Hulks and the Avengers. He has the Hulk first full storyline with Rocket Racoon and that Iron Man first appearance of Thanos both of which went from cents to hundreds in value over night.

Oh yeah, and this is another pretty important one to me.



Anybody own any old Valiant comics? I have these...

I would have to look. I'm pretty sure I had that Turok with the foil/embossed/plastic cover.

These were the coolest Valiant books IMO, but I don't think I ever had my own copies

Cool. I would love to have some of those now.

In this case, I love saying "I told you so". Seriously, this has been my argument and predicted outcome for almost two years. Stop changing stuff we grew up on and make NEW characters to experiment with!

Vaporman87 wrote :

In this case, I love saying "I told you so". Seriously, this has been my argument and predicted outcome for almost two years. Stop changing stuff we grew up on and make NEW characters to experiment with!
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I saw this article too today. I hope this is a sign that the public's perception of ultra progressivism is finally starting to turn.

When you put it that way, I agree... although the candy bar analogy is a little strained.

So on the heels of the revelation that things are going sour for Marvel, at least in print, we have them making a big splash with the "Legacy" series, which seems to be an attempt to bring some history back into their characters and comics. Eh... I might consider buying it. Maybe.