X-MEN
Comic Books
For Sale
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the buyer.
One of the most successful
comic book franchises in history began in 1963.
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and
Steve Ditko had already created fan favorites the Fantastic
Four, the Amazing Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the
Mighty Thor, the Invincible Iron Man, the
Astonishing Ant-Man and was looking to continue its
expansion of the Marvel Universe.
Stan had been tinkering
with the idea of a group of heroes that wouldn't necessarily
acquire powers from a different source or accident, but
rather being born with them.
During a time where science
fiction was continuing to capture the curiosity of the
general public, he thought wouldn't it be great if the
next set of heroes had strange abilities and were viewed
even more as outcasts than the ones Marvel already created.
Super beings that would cause the public to fear them and not
embrace them as heroes, but rather see them as detrimental
to society.
The X-Men with its strange
teacher Professor X establishing a school of
gifted students who needed to be worked with constantly to find themselves and establish themselves in the
world. To try and be accepted by their fellow man and
woman.
The original team consisted
of the orphan with laser blasting eyes Scott Summers alias
Cyclops, the telepathic powered Jean Grey alias Marvel Girl,
the rich winged warrior Warren Worthington III alias the
Angel, the ice cold Bobby Drake alias the Iceman and the
acrobatic superhuman with large grotesque feet and hands of
Hank McCoy alias the Beast.
The team set out to find
and help others who were in the same predicament as
they were - mutants. Shunned by all others.
Outcasts without hope.
Lee and Kirby's stories and
art were amongst Marvel's very best in the early years of
the Marvel Age of Comics and it carried over into the pages
of the X-Men.
The group immediately
encountered one of the most powerful mutants ever in Magneto,
the master of magnetism in the very first issue. A long-time associate of Professor X whose
back story would be told many times in the future.
This first experience would lay the
groundwork for countless entanglements with the eventual
leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
One of the group's most
recognizable villains would debut in issue #3 to battle the
young team - the Blob. He was a massive individual
able to absorb the most powerful of impacts and would be
featured in many issues.
The team fought and battled the
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in issue #4 with the introduction of future
Avengers the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver teaming with
Magneto and the Toad. The Brotherhood would return in
various factions many times over.
The X-Men would have a great colossal battle with the Avengers in
issue #9 and a favorite from the Golden Age was
re-introduced in the Silver Age in issue #10, Ka-Zar.
The young
X-Men traveled to the Savage Land for an incredible journey
that would be revisited in future years.
Long-time antagonists would
be introduced in issues #12 and #14 with the Juggernaut and
the Sentinels debuting. Both sets of characters have become intertwined
in X-Men lore ever since. The Sentinels are one of the
X-Men's signature villains having been featured in many
large storylines and were a significant part of the
legendary Days of Future Past stories which is touched upon
later in this page.
Professor X's origin would
be told in issue #12 making it even more of a collector's item
along with the Juggernaut appearance. The two are
actually step-brothers.
Another great character
made his debut in issue #28. The Banshee who would later
become an X-Man is featured on an eye-catching bright red
cover zipping through and blowing by the team.
The Amazing Spider-Man would stop by
to meet up with the X-Men in issue #35 which is a
highly sought-after issue. Most of the Silver Age
cross-over appearances of Spider-Man are great collector's
item. A lot of people see cross-overs as commonplace
today, but back in those days it was not a routine thing.
Magneto and Juggernaut and
a
bunch of newly created mutants like the Mimic would have
their continued encounters with the team during this time
period in the mid-1960s.
Havok who we would later find
out is Scott Summer's brother
made his debut in issue #56, another fan favorite issue.
Havok has become a very popular character so certainly his
first appearance would be a great collector's item to search
for.
By the
mid-1960s the title had been competing
with the previously mentioned Marvel characters in the other
titles and went through sort of a
metamorphoses by the time 1970 rolled around. Marvel decided to run reprints
of previous issues in
issues #67 through #93 and eventually canceled the
title altogether in 1970.
The team lay dormant for a
few years before a huge building block was established in
the pages of the Incredible Hulk.
Wolverine would first
appear in issues #180, 181 and 182 battling the
Hulk and the Canadian creature the Wendigo.
No one at the time could
forecast how this character would become an integral part of
the X-Men and go on to be its most recognized and most
popular.
Writer Chris Claremont and
artist Dave Cockrum were tasked to revitalize the X-Men and
were essentially given no restrictions on creating the new team's
roster.
They plucked Wolverine and teamed him up with Cyclops to
continue his original role as team lead with
Storm,
Colossus, Nightcrawler and Thunderbird to round out the new team.
This was Wolverine's second
appearance overall.
All except Cyclops and Wolverine were making their first appearances.
Professor X was still the mentor to all and a whole new
beginning blazed in the pages of Giant-Size X-Men #1 in
1975.
The sales of the issue was
good enough for Marvel to revive the title continuing the
numbering system with issue #94 as the start of the New
X-Men run.
In retrospect this was probably the
biggest debut issue of the Bronze Age-1970s. Fans
gravitated to the New X-Men issues and would go nuts over
the title when a Canadian artist who was beginning to forge
his own mark in the industry was brought in to take over
the regular art duties from Dave Cockrum with issue #108.
Due to varying stories with
no one definitive answer, John Byrne replaced Cockrum after
he had given the New X-Men life for a couple of years.
Chris Claremont remained as writer and the New X-Men was
fast becoming the hottest comic book on the market.
Everyone was going New X-Men crazy and the stories and
artwork were among the very best that Marvel and for that
matter any publisher had ever produced gaining critical
acclaim along the way.
Any of the team's appearances outside of the title gained
huge collector interest as well such as Iron Fist #15 and Marvel
Team-Up Annual #1.
Old favorites like Magneto
and Sauron had been resurrected and old X-Men like the Beast were
featured prominently into the new storylines. The
Angel would return too.
Many new
characters were introduced during the Claremont and Byrne
era like Weapon Alpha later named Vindicator, Alpha Flight, the Dazzler, the White Queen, the
Hellfire Club and Kitty Pryde.
It was during Byrne's run
that Wolverine would start to become one of the most popular
Marvel characters around. Byrne embraced him and often
placed Wolverine prominently out in front of the rest of the
cast where Cockrum used to do the same with Nightcrawler
during his tenure.
Byrne and Claremont's run
together on the title
lasted for a few years and helped expand the ever growing
X-Men and mutant world. It laid the foundation for
several key storylines in the Marvel Universe and helped to
start many, many other X-Men titles to follow in near and
distant years like X-Factor, Excalibur, New Mutants, X-Force
and numerous other incarnations.
The major Dark Phoenix storyline they produced ran through
several of the issues from #129 through #137 culminating
with Jean Grey's death in issue #137, but of course this is
comic books and the character would eventually return.
It may have been their finest moments on the title during
these issues. The storyline still remains one of
Marvel's most reprinted and most popular of all-time.
Byrne would depart and work
on other titles like Alpha Flight and Fantastic Four, but
before he left produced the now memorable Days of Future
Past issues in issue #141 and 142 which has had considerable storylines related
and attached to.
We get to see what the earth is like many, many years in the
future as a direct result of what had happened in the
current day/past. Mutants are savagely hunted by the
Sentinels with only a few X-Men struggling to survive and
attempting to alter events that directly impact what is
occurring in the future.
Byrne's last issue was #143 which provided Kitty Pryde her
first solo action against the menacing Brood and gave fans
yet another wonderful character to get excited about in the
X-Men dynasty.
Although Byrne was very
popular during his run, fans still continued to buy the
X-Men issues after he had left and in a lot of ways the
issues that succeeded him have exceeded in sales and
popularity.
Claremont would remain for
a few more years after Byrne left and worked with many top
artists like Paul Smith to consistently produce high quality
issues.
We would get to see many new characters joining the team
like Rogue, Gambit, Forge, Jubilee, Bishop and others with
some original members branching off on their own or joining
other teams.
Characters like Cable would be introduced in the pages of
X-Men and would go onto become very popular in his own right
and was the leader of X-Force. The X-Men issues have
helped spawn so much variety in the comic book world.
With many new X-Men related titles launching and
establishing itself in the marketplace, it was natural to
incorporate major storylines amongst the X titles requiring
buyers to purchase issues from each title in order to gain
the complete storyline.
Mutant Massacre, Fall of
the Mutants, Inferno, Acts of Vengeance, X-Tinction Agenda,
Muir Island Saga, Onslaught are some examples of storylines
appearing in multiple X-Men
titles. These stories have helped push the X-Men and
mutant titles to great heights of popularity.
With several X-Men related movies and TV shows having been
produced and many more on their way and an abundance of
titles that continue to be published regularly, there's
really no shortage of X-Men and X-Men related material
anywhere. Each title and stories have something for
every reader and collector
interest.
Anyone will find the X-Men books to be very engaging, very
moving and very, very exciting.
Purchasing X-Men Comics
When reviewing sources to acquire
X-Men issues, I like to check
out local comic book shops and conventions. I get to see
the comics in person and can examine more issues at one time than I could online.
Eventually local sources go only so far since they rely on
collectors and other sellers in the area to bring them in.
Sources on the internet tend to travel and pick up
collections and will buy a lot of books online to add to
their inventory. They also have a lot of people from
all over the world who will contact them since they are not
tied to a local area to sell to them. These sellers
also tend to advertise on a more global scale than the local
comic book shop since their marketplace is the entire world
essentially.
mycomicshop
is a great place to find X-Men issues. They're a
national online seller and have been selling comic books
through the mail since the 1960s. They try to stock every issue of every
title that has ever been published.
You'll
see a large amount of
X-Men
covers of key books in the run
as well as general issues in the title on this page that I
think will interest any
X-Men
collection which will take
you directly to mycomicshop's inventory of that issue.
There you
will see every condition of that issue they currently have
in stock so you can choose the right condition of the book
that you're looking for.
Don't be
worried if you do not see an issue in stock when you click
on any of the links. Often times they will receive an
issue into their inventory on a fairly regular basis as they
purchase books and collections daily. Just go ahead
and bookmark the link after you've clicked on the issue here
or check back here and click on the link to see if the issue
has come into stock. The links will stay permanently
connected.
I've
purchased books from mycomicshop before and will continue to use them.
Their grading is accurate and they are a reliable source.
They have great customer service in providing you books in a
timely manner.
Ebay is a
great option as there’s a lot of
collectors/sellers/dealers always looking to move in
and out of product and use Ebay as their avenue.
You may find some good deals on Ebay, but be careful to check out
the auctions and or Buy it Now listings carefully. Some
sellers’ terms are not right for everyone and sometimes the
items are not what you expect.
If condition is important to you, then be sure to ask a lot
of questions. If you don’t get the right kinds of answers
you’re looking for, then move on and try another listing.
Always check out the seller’s profile to see how their past
selling has been. If they’re new to selling and have only
been buying, ask questions.
You always want to be comfortable with the person you’re
potentially going to be buying from and you really need to
know what it is you’re getting.
If you're looking for CGC X-Men comics, then ComicLink is
your best choice. They focus primarily on CGC books
and you can find some of the top notch
X-Men issues available on
their site. Expect to see from time to time CGC X-Men #1,
Giant Size X-Men #1, X-Men #94 and many others and CGC X-Men comic books from the
Bronze age.
Enjoy your hunt and Happy
Collecting!!!
Johnson's Collectibles