Alana's Weekend Specs: Bronze Beauties


Hey fellow CHU’ers, Welcome back to Weekend Specs!! This week I want to go over a couple of Big Bang for your Buck Bronze Beauties that are nothing new to the spec world but may be your last chance to get in on a good deal. Through my time collecting comics, and  I fondly remember when I first started going to the comic store in the 80’s, and collecting Golden age was all the rage for comic book spec’s, only to see the Silver age emerge and take over in the 90’s. Now in 2017, and  I know you have all heard it before, Bronze is the new Silver age. Some Bronze keys have already started hitting their stride in the last 7 years Hulk #181, Werewolf by Night #32, Amazing Spider-Man #129, House of Secrets #92, Batman #232, Iron Man #55, etc. I could go on and on. But surprisingly a couple uber important Bronze Age keys are still cheap and affordable but this window is about to close. Your time to target them is now if you don’t already own them. Also a couple of other tv news and dollar bin specs to go with the already heard of Bronze Age books I’m going to gush about below. Let’s jump in!!!!

Marvel Preview #7 1st Rocket Raccoon, Marvel Preview #4 1st Starlord, Marvel Super-Heroes #18 1st Guardians of the Galaxy. With the second movie upon us, and news of the third, it’s your last chance to get these mega keys at a fair price. While writing this article James Gunn announced he will do Guardians 3 only for Kevin Feige the following day to hint there will be more then 3 Guardians of the Galaxy movies. What does this mean for the comic speculator? Get all Guardians of the Galaxy 1st appearances while they are still fairly cheap. Guardians will be the team of this generation after Xmen the team of the 90s, the Avengers of current, now the torch will pass to the Guardians. The three Bronze books listed here you should have or it will be a regret 5years from now. Regardless of what age the book is from all Guardian 1st appearances are a safe bet for price increases over the next generation. Don’t hesitate anymore when it comes to GOTG!

Star Wars #1 1977. The most undervalued underrated comic book there is in my opinion!!! Action Comics #1 is as important to super hero comics as Star Wars #1 is to Star Wars comics. What does that even mean? Star Wars #1 is as important to comic books as Superman’s 1st appearance is to comics. The introduction of Superman spun off generations of hero comics, just like Star Wars #1 has spun off thousands of Star Wars comics. Although both books are from different comic book genres their influence is equal to defining those genres. This book is now 40 years old, 35 of those years you could pick this up for $10 in high grade. Recently the price has started to tick upwards due to the return of Star Wars movies and will continue to do so. This book is a major Bronze key and one day the price will reflect it. A couple things that have held this book back in the past is this was released a couple months after the movie so a lot people got it and put it away just like the toys, 40 years later there’s a lot of Star Wars collectors and comic book collectors world wide and will continue to be for another whole future generation. No where but up to go for this Bronze Beauty.

Green Lantern #76 1st Modern Arrow, Arrow added to title. This Bronze Age book still has a little room left on the train but not for long. Arrow keeps pumping out seasons and the next one has to be better then the current one. Seriously try and watch every episode of Arrow start to current it will take you weeks!! We did it in my house because we love all the other DC shows so much, and they cross over all the time now. Arrow has some great and not so great storylines and is more of a soap opera then any other comic book show but with all that said it’s good and will keep going just like the price of this book.

X-men #49 1st Polaris. Get this now don’t wait until the new X-men TV show Gifted premieres or you will be sorry! Can be found cheap in lower grades and $100+ in higher grades. Some will argue X-men #50 is first Polaris, it’s not according to CGC
X-men #49 is clearly labeled 1st Polaris X-men #50 even says 2nd Polaris on its CGC label both books are moving don’t be left out.

J2 #5 1st Rina Logan (Wild Thing), J2 #8 1st Hudson Logan (Sabreclaw). Ok these are more towards the modern age but Wolverine’s kids are all the talk these days, did you know he has others. Wild thing is the Daughter of Wolvie and Elektra and half sister to Sabreclaw. Both can be found cheap in dollar boxes. With Wolverine’s kids you never know what could happen to make these characters relevant once again so definitely worth the dollar investment.

Web of Spider-Man #86 1st Demogoblin. I love cheap villain 1st appearances, I really love cheap Spider-Man villain 1st appearances. Dollar bin searching all day!

Inhuman #1 1st Lash, 1st Inferno. This will be the second time writing this book up since doing comic spec articles. Once long ago for Lash on Agents of Shield and now for Inferno on coming Inhumans show. Recent casting leads me to believe that Inferno has been added to the Inhumans television show. Dante Pertuz (Inferno) looks a lot like the newest actor cast for Inhumans. Inferno was also recently added to Marvel Future Fight mobile game with the rest of the Inhumans already known to be part of the show. Believe it or not monthly mobile app game updates for certain Marvel and DC mobile games can be good spec tools for seeing which direction and characters will be pushed in the different comic universes. Example of this is Kid Kaiju and Moongirl both getting attention recently both added to Marvel Future Fight not long ago. Just another tool from the speculators bag of tricks.
There you have it a few known Bronze Age keys (and a couple of modern first appearances) with room to grow to get on now or forever hold your peace. Get your Guardians together pronto!!! X-men #49 poised to do big things and a couple dollar bin shots in the dark worth the search. Until next week thanks for reading CHUniverse and happy hunting!

18 thoughts on “Alana's Weekend Specs: Bronze Beauties”

  2. Since I wrote this last week as most of you know from the GOTG 2 spoilers Marvel Super Heroes #18 got another small pop yesterday. I also want to note that Rina and Hudson Logan both come from the Marvel Comics 2 reality that brings us Hope Pym and Mainframe both now with MCU film appearances. So not as far fetched as it once was to collect Marvel Comics 2 first appearances like Rina and Hudson

  3. I’m pretty sure the first Star Wars #1 came out before the movie did. The reprint may have come out after the movie release. I do agree this is a very under-valued book for its significance and being the first appearance of so many major characters.

    2. Definitely true, I remember buying that comic on my way to school, and my friends and I reading it at lunchtime.

    3. Wookieepedia: “Star Wars 1 is the first issue of the Marvel Star Wars series of comic books. It closely follows the opening events of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Released for sale on April 12, 1977, this first issue actually predated the release of A New Hope by a month.”

      1. …Wars comics, doesnt reflect the on screen Yoda we all know, but it was a version of Yoda that the artists working on the book came up with based of pre production Yoda sketches. They did this as they had not actually seen the movie while drawing the panels for this book. Is there any truth to this? (sorry about the two parter, something screwy happened while writing this)

        1. Chewbacca and Darth Vader were a little off as well but Yoda was different they went back later and fixed them in the collections.

      2. I don’t remember the details, but CBR did a story on that before in one of their ongoing columns. I wish they hadn’t changed their format and screwed up some of their archive pages; it made it easier to find previous “Comic Book Legends Revealed”, but I am pretty sure that is the column it appeared in.

  7. Very good list… Although I think a lot of the major GotG keys have hit a bit of a stride and the quick flip spec is long gone there is still very promising long term room for growth!

  8. Starhawk and Defenders 27 and 28 could be more important than just a small cameo in GOTG 2 if they really plan on reforming the original guardians.

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