Alana's Weekend Specs: Big Villains small prices.

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Hey fellow CHU’ers Welcome back to this weeks edition of weekend specs. With little movie/TV comic news to cover I’m going to dive into some undervalued villain 1st appearances for your back issue hunting this weekend. Some issues are well known, some are long forgotten but all still have good growth potential and are fairly easy to pick up. If you love villains, 1st appearances, and good deals this weeks write up is for you. Let’s jump in!

Tales of Suspense #65 1st SA Red Skull. 1st Silver Age appearance isn’t really the proper title for this book as its far more important then that. I’m going to go with 1st Marvel comics appearance. Appearances of Red Skull prior to this issue were published by Timely comics which later turned into Atlas comics which is the predecessor to the start of Marvel Comics in 1961. Red Skull is one of the most iconic villains in the Marvel universe just as important as Doctor Doom, Loki, Thanos, Magneto, Galactus, Etc. This book can be found at $20+ depending on condition, would have to say this is one of the most undervalued Silver age comics left out there. Tales of Suspense #66 is a good buy as well, like the Copycat/Domino debate Tales of Suspense #65 has someone impersonating Redskull and is on cover, issue #66 would be Johann Shmidt as Red Skull + origin and again around $20 and up. TTales of Suspense #65‘s price should be on par with Fantastic Four #5 1st Dr. Doom and Journey into Mystery #85 1st Loki, maybe one day it will in the meantime while its cheap it is definitely worth a place in your personal collection.
Tales to Astonish #62 1st appearance of Leader. Leader is the main antagonist to Hulk like Red Skull is to Cap, Magneto is to X-men, etc. Again another undervalued villain silver age key that can be found for $10 on up. Just because Leader has yet to appear in a film doesn’t take away his importance to the story of the Hulk . For the price why is this not in your collection? Tales to Astonish #63 is also worth a mention as his 2nd appearance.
Tales to Astonish #90 1st Abomination. Hulk villains get no love ? Abomination even has a silver screen appearance and this book can again be found for $20 on up. Can’t beat silver age 1st appearances for a twenty spot it’s not going to lose any value that’s for sure. Tales to Astonish #91 is a good pickup as well 1st Abomination cover and its a pretty iconic Hulk cover.
Superman Pal’s Jimmy Olsen #134 1st Darkseid cameo. Not any breaking spec news with this book as its probably been written up by someone or another 1000+ times. I hate this book, back when I was looking to buy Darkseids 1st appearance it was considered Forever People #1 and no mention of this book. Can’t complain back then Forever People #1 was $10 NM so that book has done well itself. News of this book broke and instantly became more sought after then FP#1 even though it’s a one panel cameo of Darkseid on a monitor screen not in his normal color scheme. It’s still worth a pickup because of its supposedly extremely low print run. I’ve read estimates as low of only 1000 copies in existence. Can find poor copies $40 and VG-fines $100 on up. There’s still a lot of room for this and Forever People #1 to grow over the next 10years and for that this book is worth another mention to make it 1001 times you’ve read this.
Tales of Suspense #94 1st MODOK. Found at $10 on up solid mid grades around $20. Books almost 50 years old! MODOK is still around and a villain that crosses into many different characters story lines, not to mention the character is created by Jack Kirby. Why wait for movie or TV news of MODOK in the future and pay more when this book is at a good spec price now. Tales of Suspense #93 is worth a look as well with a one panel cameo teaser.
X-men 1991 #53 1st Onslaught. Onslaught is probably my favorite of the modern Marvel villains. Can’t lose on this find it $1 and on up.
New Gods vol3 #17 1st Yuga Khan. If you can find it buy it. This can be found for cheap $5 on up and worth putting away to see what happens in future DC movies. The problem is finding it.
New Mutants #25, #26 1st Legion. Shows green-lit but has been talked about forever now so should of already picked these up. You can get these 1st appearances of Legion for $1 on up starting to go around $10. Might be worth digging his different personalities 1st appearances out of $1 bins as well.
Fantastic Four annual #6 1st Annihilus also 1st Franklin Richards. Can be found $10 up. All Fantastic Four books are being neglected but this won’t always be the case. Good choice for a non Dr Doom villain for future Fantastic Four films. Also while Fantastic Four books are being overlooked you might be able to pull a Fantastic Four #481st Silver Surfer, 1st Galactus for cheaper then normal due to the lack of F4 interest as of late.
This past week showed us a $10 first appearance of a villain like Black Flash, Flash vol2 #138, or Ayesha, Hulk annual #6 can be a $100 book in the blink of an eye. So best to get these low priced villain books now while they are still cheap because they won’t ever be any cheaper. I hope you enjoy the list this week thanks for reading and happy hunting CHU’ers

5 thoughts on “Alana's Weekend Specs: Big Villains small prices.”

  1. Good list! Have some of these already but wouldn’t hurt to get some more of these future gems. Picked up a few Jimmy Olsen #134 a couple of years ago before the prices really took off. Still got on it a bit late but managed to get 2 in vf and 1 in fine+ for about a third what they are going for now…One being signed by Jack Kirby. That one will stay in the PC. I can see why JO #134 is considered Darkseid’s first appearance even if it is only a cameo. Forever people is the first full appearance but his third overall. Maybe if Jimmy Olsen #135 didn’t have a cameo in it as well Forever People #1 would get more love. New Gods #17, first Yugo Khan is intriguing. I think I wrote about this before, but when the cut scene from Dawn of Justice hit, it looked too much like Yugo Khan so I went online and was able to get a few. Since then it has been like the book doesn’t exist. It still isn’t selling for much since no announcement has been made if that was indeed Yugo, this book is going to be insanely hard to find! I still think if people check their local comic ship they might be able to find one buried away for cheap. No idea if anything will ever get done in regard to seeing MODOK on the big screen, but worst case is TOS #94 is a fun key issue for a fan favorite villain!

    1. Man, those DS cameos are weak sauce though, like, a tiny screen with his face on it weak sauce. SP #134 is a glorified head shot. It’s a really weird thing that such a tiny cameo gets so much love compared to a fleshed out full appearance, regardless of how many other minor cameos preceeded it. Superman fans just seem to really over value cameos, however minor, Doomsday and his million fist appearances is another great example.

  2. I’ve been wanting an FF #48 for a while now. Good to know they are finally at an affordable price. Thanks for the heads up Alana.

    1. Yeah, I have been thinking about getting a VG range FF #48. Nothing too expensive…just to have for the personal collection. Alana is correct. There isn’t a huge demand for most FF keys right now outside of FF #52 and maybe FF #12. With the iInhumans delay/cancellation FF #45 is another one that is starting to go down a little. Now is a good time to search out and get deals on FF books.

  3. MODOK is an interesting character in regards to MCU movies. In the official game for the Ironman 3 movie Aldrich Killian consciousness had been “downloaded” by A.I.M. prior to his physical death in the movie and uploaded into a new, enhanced form. After Iron Man defeats him in combat, he attempts to survive by uploading his consciousness into the network of Stark Industries. Iron Man willingly sacrifices the network (and therefore Stark Industries itself) towards destroying Killian for good. So this opens up possibilities of seeing MODOK in Ironman 4 or perhaps the next Avengers movie. Killian/MODOK consciousness could be hiding somewhere in the network not only bringing Killian back as MODOK but maybe the last bits of Ultron’s consciousness could be hiding out with him. MODOK would also fit well as a side villain for the upcoming Captain Marvel movie.
    I want to add one more thing to the Red Skull write up. Red Skull doesn’t die in the first Captain America movie, he is transported in space God knows where by the tesseract. With Marvel making its way into space with Thor 3, GOTG 2, coming Avengers movies, and perhaps Captain Marvel there’s a very good chance that Red Skull is going to show up again and this time show up as the Cosmic Skull.

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