Scott Goodman

I'm not so sure that's the full story, though, because Hansen came back to NOW in the late 1990s and early 2000s and was doing more work for Tony and the NOW 2.0 company and then they split again. I know NOW published a Doc Gorpon trade paperback that is super, super rare, so the partnership was renewed long enough to produce the Ralph Snart trade paperback and hardcover and at least one Doc Gorpon trade. I think there was maybe a Weird Melvin trade that NOW published back then, too. I have those somewhere in my longboxes of trade paperbacks. I actually have one of the Hansen drawings that was supposed to go into a hardcover and a shrinkwrapped HC. I know those were in the low 100s as far as the print run. I'd say Doc Gorpon and Weird Melvin trade paperbacks would have to be far fewer.

The NOW Ralph Snart HARDCOVER is rare. The trade paperback reprinting the early stuff is pretty rare, too, but the hardcover was limited originally to only 300 copies. There was some kind of rift that developed between the publisher of NOW and Marc Hansen and so publisher Tony Caputo ended up with a few copies of the HC and I don't think they ever made it into the public's hands. I'm not sure if Tony still has any of those copies, but he sent me mine several years ago when I did some research on NOW. Last I talked to him, he was trying to put the nightmare of what happened to that once-great publishing giant behind him.

I found a run of Ghost Rider from 70-93 all in NM+ yesterday and I bought them all at $2 each. I also got Amazing Spider-Man 430-441 in NM+ for $2 each, Daredevil 368-380 in the same condition for the same prices, a Green Lantern: The Power of Ion trade paperback for $5 and several other hard-to-find 1990s books at the same flea market. How long were you able to contain your glee when you bought them? I started buying them last weekend and I plan to go back for more this weekend. I wasn't expecting 1990s comics to be selling for such high prices. Needless to say, when I got back home with the large stacks I was pleasantly surprised to see some were worth way more than I'd paid for them.

I found a run of Ghost Rider from 70-93 all in NM+ yesterday and I bought them all at $2 each. I also got Amazing Spider-Man 430-441 in NM+ for $2 each, Daredevil 368-380 in the same condition for the same prices, a Green Lantern: The Power of Ion trade paperback for $5 and several other hard-to-find 1990s books at the same flea market. Considering that OPG has most of those for $2-$3 it isn't so surprising they'd be priced like that. comic shops, flea markets, etc. don't really pay attention to "last issue" prices on ebay unless they work their way into OPG. OPG doesn't even break out Turok 47, for example. There were 11 comic book shops in my local area in the mid-1990s and I'm seeing so many collections turn up lately that are full of NM+ 1990s books that it makes me wonder if all these books aren't coming from the leftover stocks of those old stores. Surely one collector didn't hoard 20 copies of Magnus Robot Fighter 37 or Strong Guy 1 ...

Last issues are tough to find, especially that Swamp Thing 171 and Marvel Comics Presents 175. Seems like every shop I look in has all the issues up to 169.

I found a run of Ghost Rider from 70-93 all in NM+ yesterday and I bought them all at $2 each. I also got Amazing Spider-Man 430-441 in NM+ for $2 each, Daredevil 368-380 in the same condition for the same prices, a Green Lantern: The Power of Ion trade paperback for $5 and several other hard-to-find 1990s books at the same flea market.

In 2001, when I lived in Tennessee, I was picking the Deathmate golds up at comic shops around the Knoxville-Morristown-Sevierville areas for 25-50 cents each -- and I have bunches of them. At one time, I think I had a shortbox nearly full of Valiant golds I picked up there. All except for the Deathmate Red and I have NEVER seen a copy for sale in a shop. Heck, I even found Magnus Robot Fighter 0s with the coupon for 50 cents each and still never saw a Deathmate Red gold. As we discuss these gold editions, it reminds me that one of the hardest to find foil covers was the Topps Kirbyverse promo that had a silver cover and a red foil cover. Can't remember the name, but I saw those two variant covers when I was living in Tennessee and I didn't pick either of them up and regretted it soon after I left the store. I had been talking about how I'd never found those before and another guy in the store picked them out after I left. I guess I should have kept my mouth shut ...

Wonder Woman and the Star Riders is nearly impossible to find. There are at least three copies on eBay and all are going for more than $100 each. Mycomicshop.com has five copies with a VG going for $22. This book was listed in one of the later issues of Deathstroke on one of the DC Direct Currents news pages as a comic that no one would ever find, because they were never distributed. The cartoon was cancelled before it ever hit the air and the comic was never supposed to be distributed, either, but a few -- very few -- got out and inserted into Cinnaminibuns cereal. The other minicomics that were in this set aren't easy to find, either, but they're nowhere near as rare as the Wonder Woman issue.

I got several of those from the same guy who sold me the Predator vs. Magnus trade paperback for a buck. Those were a buck each, too. (actually, although he was asking $1 each for them, I got them all -- the trade paperback included -- in a group for a little less than 80 cents each) But, I never, ever see those for sale at any of the shops I frequent. It's only when someone brings in their 1990s collection to a shop and I'm there when it comes in do I ever run across any of these Conan miniseries.

Another rare book is the Green Hornet hardcover reprinting the first 12 issues of the NOW Comics series -- volume 1. I talked with Tony Caputo and he said the book was so rare that he didn't even see a copy. A year or so later, when I talked with him, he'd either bought a copy from eBay or someone sent him a copy. We were discussing the Green Hornet hardcover as we talked about how rare the Ralph Snart hardcover is in comparison ... only 300 printed of that one, but it was printed in 2004, so it doesn't qualify for this thread or this forum. If I remember correctly, Tony told me there may be less than 200 of those Green Hornet hardcovers.

I need to correct what I wrote earlier. The Prime Time hardcover was signed and numbered. My copy is 198 of 2000. And the price was $45.95, instead of $50. But, that still makes it pretty rare. I wonder if all 2000 copies were sold or if they didn't sell and the remainders destroyed. Or, if 2000 was printed at all. I never see this one come up for sale.

I traded my Harbinger 1 with card, Harbinger 2 with card, an X-O Manowar 1 and one or two other Valiant pre-Unity comics for an Amazing Spider-Man 129 in fine, Conan the Barbarian 1 VF, 2 NM+ and 3NM+. This guy I knew locally who collected and sold comics was doing some regional comic shows and he said he couldn't do anything with the books he traded me and he believed he could do way better selling the Valiants ... Sadly, they were still hanging up on his stands at the shows I attended several years later ... and I sold the Spider-Man and Conans for several hundred dollars.

The Valiant speculators kept the early pre-Unity books very hot into 1994. I remember I got my Harbinger 4 at a shop in Huntington, W.Va., for $60 in 1993 and in late 1993, I had a $300 offer on my Harbinger 0 (with a thank you letter from Valiant's Michelle Perham on Valiant letterhead). I don't think the Valiant heat started dying until 1993, after collectors started seeing how Valiant was pumping out the special covers and the incentives. I know I had to pay, like, $8 each for Magnus 18-19, because they were allocated in my area and my retailer only got two or three copies of each and he went by seniority on his pull list, so I missed out and had to buy those at a show. I ended up buying a complete collection -- up to that point -- in 1994 for $850 and the books were still pretty hot then. In 1995, when I moved to Kentucky, the shop there started lowering the prices on the pre-Unity issues. By 1997, I was buying Harbinger 1s or 50 cents each. (The shop owner in Kentucky, who had a hunch Valiants would be valuable and who hoarded Valiants from the time the company started publishing Magnus and Solar, told me he was offered $10,000 for a set of Valiants around 1993 and he refused to sell one of his, like, 20 sets. In 1997, he told me he regretted NOT selling those when he had the chance, as I cherry picked high grade and rare issues from his quarter and 50 cent boxes. He then had around 10-15 copies of each issue in his discount boxes.)

I was a big fan of Valiant stuff way back when the Predator vs. Magnus trade came out and my retailer, who kept me in the loop about all things Valiant, never told me anything about it. I didn't know about it until years later and I had never even seen one for sale anywhere. I was so shocked when I found the one in the dollar box. I asked the guy how much he wanted for the book and he told me a buck and I was totally speechless. He said the books that were worth the most were in the box under the table and that he'd let most of those go for $2-$3 each. He later told me that a guy was selling him boxes of books from an old store collection at just a few cents apiece. And I can remember when the Prime Time hardcover came out and Prime and the rest of the Ultraverse titles were pretty hot (we were all eagerly awaiting the mail-order Ultraverse 0 to come in with that beautiful Jim Lee Mantra cover). I wanted one, because comics in hardcover back then was pretty new and very seldom done, so I inquired about the book, but backed out when I found out how much it was. I think this was the only collection that Malibu did of any of the Ultraverse comics and it may have come out right around the time of the line's decline. I need to do some more research and find my copy to see if it has a price inside the book. I'm sure it was somewhere around $50 because I know back then I couldn't afford one. There were also a few of the Ultra rare Ultraverse titles that had silver stamps on the front cover. Those were limited to 5,000 copies each. I think I have Prototype 1, Prime 1 and Solitare 1 and maybe one or two more. I know I've got a Hardcase 1 hologram cover that was with the Strangers 1 that I had graded. I might have a Prime 1 hologram, too, but it'd take quite a long look into my boxes to find that one. The biggest problem with Ultraverse was that it had the unfortunate timing that had it coming out right around the boom and bust for comics back in the 1990s. Plus, Malibu printed as many of each of those first few comics as Valiant did with Turok 1. There were some good titles, like Prime, Strangers, Sludge and Exiles, but they got lost in the shuffle of the boom, which helped push them into the bust phase. I'm not really sure how many of those Ultraverse 0s and Rune 0s there are out there. Those were available to people who sent in the coupons that appeared in several of the Ultraverse comics. I know I've got a copy of both and the Prime Flood Relief issue that you got if you sent in a donation to the American Red Cross. I sent in my coupons for the Ultraverse 0s at same time as I sent off to get my Image 0, which took nearly two years to get and wasn't worth the hassle after it arrived and I saw the junk that was inside. I wonder how many of those Image 0s were printed...

One other book that's really, really rare is the Fatale: Inherit the Earth hardcover. It's 10 times rarer than the trade paperback. I have seen one copy for sale of the HC and it went for close to $200, if I remember correctly.