1988: THE LAST GREAT YEAR FOR MOVIES

1988: The Last Great Year for Movies 

By Barry Dutter

In the late 1980s, I used to go to the movies all the time with my friends. We were in our mid-twenties, we had crappy jobs and we were broke all the time, but the movies provided cheap entertainment to us at least once a week, sometimes twice.

I remember 1988 in particular because that was the year that we all moved from dreary New Jersey to Southern California. And there was an impressive variety of quality movies released that year.

Let’s take a look at the Top Ten highest-grossing movies of 1988:

1) RAIN MAN

2) WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT

3) COMING TO AMERICA

4) BIG

5) TWINS

6) CROCODILE DUNDEE  II

7) DIE HARD

8) THE NAKED GUN

9) COCKTAIL

10) BEETLEJUICE

Now let’s look at the top 10 movies from 2014.



1. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

2. HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1

3. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

4. THE LEGO MOVIE

5. TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

6. MALEFICENT

7. X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

8. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

9. BIG HERO 6

10. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

(The next 3 movies on the list are the GODZILLA reboot, the sequel to the TV reboot 22 JUMP STREET, and the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES reboot.)
Pretty sad comparison, huh? Many of the movies on the 1988 list are beloved classics. Most of the movies on the 2014 list are bloated, derivative big-budget action epics where you just shrug your shoulders and go, “Meh.”
Movies are so disposable and so generic these days, it’s hard to remember what the movie was about five minutes after it’s over.
1988 was notable because of the sheer lack of “franchise“ films that came out that year. Consider: The STAR WARS trilogy had ended five years before, with George Lucas vowing to never make another film in his epic space fantasy saga. The series of Christopher Reeve SUPERMAN films had come to an inglorious end the year before with the abysmal SUPERMAN IV. The first of the big-budget BATMAN films was still a year away, as was the “conclusion” of the INDIANA JONES “trilogy.”
The TERMINATOR sequel was only a rumor at that point. Even GHOSTBUSTERS 2 was still a year away.
So with hardly any sequels or super-hero movies to see in theaters, what did movie-goers do? They went to see original movies instead.
The biggest hit of the year was RAIN MAN, a movie which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In second place at the box office was WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, a ground-breaking animation/live action hybrid. Next up was COMING TO AMERICA, one of Eddie Murphy’s all-time best comedies. Then we had BIG starring Tom Hanks, another timeless tale.
Then came TWINS, which was a dopy movie, but not without its charms. The first sequel on the list, CROCODILE DUNDEE II, comes in at #6. Then we have DIE HARD, perhaps the greatest action movie of all time. (Yes, DIE HARD later became a franchise, but at the time of its release, it was an untested concept starting an unproven TV actor who had never had a big hit movie before.)
Rounding out the top 10 were the hilarious NAKED GUN, the goofy but watchable COCKTAIL, and the bizarre and unforgettable BEETLEJUICE. 
Here is a partial list of some of the other memorable films that came out that year: A FISH CALLED WANDA. COLORS. BULL DURHAM. WORKING GIRL. SCROOGED. BEACHES. TUCKER. YOUNG GUNS. MIDNIGHT RUN. ALIEN NATION. BILOXI BLUES. DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS.
What an eclectic group of movies. You may not love all of them, but you must admit they are a diverse group.

It just seems like audiences were willing to embrace all different types of movies back in the late 80's. These days, it seems people don’t want to see any movie in a theater unless it has robots, superheroes, zombies, aliens, car chases, and lots of explosions.
I guess we only have only ourselves to blame. Studios give us what we want to see. When they make a serious drama, moviegoers generally stay home.
But it’s not only the fault of those of us who live in the US. It’s also the fault of filmgoers from around the world, who flock to see the latest superhero and sci-fi extravaganzas at the box office. Foreign box office now accounts for over 50% of a U.S. film’s total take. And nothing translates better overseas than superhero and action movies.
With the amount of money at stake, you can hardly blame studio execs for playing it safe and only approving the sequels and comic book-based properties that are almost guaranteed to be hits. 

Sequels are nothing new, of course They’ve been around since the dawn of movies, and yes, the 80’s had their share. Three of the top 20 movies released in 1988 were sequels: Rambo III, Nightmare on Elm Street 4, and Crocodile Dundee II.
This means that people who saw the top 20 movies of 1988 were treated to 17 original concepts.
Now let’s compare those numbers to the past few years.

Of the top 20 movies of 2012, 10 were sequels, remakes, or reboots. In 2013, 11 of the top 20. In 2014, it was 16 out of 20. When you look at just the top ten of each year, the numbers get even worse. In the past 3 years, roughly 90% of the movies in the top ten are installments of franchises, and a good chunk of those are based on comic books.

As a lifelong comics fan, it pains me to say this, but when it comes to story and characterization, superhero comics are not the best source material for movies. (Remember when movies used to be based on books? I mean, REAL books, like JAWS and THE GODFATHER? Remember books? But I digress…)

Comics were designed as a form of cheap entertainment that could be read in ten minutes. When you take a ten minute story and try to stretch it out over a two and a half hour movie, well, let’s just say plot and characterization are not the main strengths of most superhero movies. They all kind of blend together in a nonstop blur of pointless fight scenes, incoherent plots, and weak characterizations.

Marvel, of course, is responsible for the Comic book-ization of Hollywood starting with IRON MAN in 2008, because that was the first movie to get film-goers excited about the concept of a collective movie universe.

Sure, there were many comic book movies before, starring the likes of Spider-Man, Batman, Daredevil, Green Lantern, and the X-Men -- but those films were not part of a shared universe. IRON MAN was really the first film to launch the “Superhero Movie Universe” concept, where story threads and characters carry over from one series of films to another.

Marvel’s shared universe of films has proven so successful that it’s inspired DC Comics to launch their own universe of movies, which started with MAN OF STEEL in 2013. DC came very late to the “shared universe” party, but they’ve announced a plethora of upcoming of films of their own.

This has led to other studios figuring out how they could really milk their cash cows. Thus we will soon be treated to expanded universes of the X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, FAST AND FURIOUS and TRANSFORMERS franchises.

Definitely makes me nostalgic for a time when we had more variety at the multiplex. I didn’t love all the movies made in 1988. Some of them I didn’t like much at all. ( I could’ve done without the Joe Piscopo/ Treat Williams zombie action comedy, DEAD HEAT, for instance.)

But the point is that we had variety. There were many different types of hit movies at the box office. These days, it seems like all the big movies consist of guys in costumes punching each other.

Movie-goers used to complain about all the sequels in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but we didn’t know how good we had it. Back then, Hollywood was still not afraid to take a chance on a new idea.

I know we’ll never see another year like 1988, but I will always look back at it as a golden year. It was one of the last years when we would go to the movies and actually see a movie instead of a two-hour toy commercial.

So am I saying that there haven't been any good movies since 1988? Of course I'm not saying that. In fact, in the 1990s, there was a welcome influx of visionary new directors like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and the Wachowski Brothers. They brought us movies like RESERVOIR DOGS, THE MATRIX, and EL MARIACHI. Directors who first came on the scene in the 80s like Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers did some of their most memorable work in the 90s. And even an old war horse like Martin Scorcese proved he could still show those young bucks how it's done by making the best movie of the decade, GOODFELLAS.
The big difference was that movies like that were not the biggest films of the year. Quirky low-budget films had to play second fiddle to an increasing number of sequels.

The 90s were one last gasp for creativity and originality in the movie business before the monsters, robots, aliens and super-heroes took over.  

Now it seems like we're stuck in a cycle where there are about 40 or 50 ongoing franchises -- almost enough for one new franchise film every weekend. At one time, movies series used to stop with trilogies. But the thinking these days is that there is no need for any franchise to stop -- ever. As long as a film series keeps making money, the studios will keep cranking them out. 

And if a film series does stop making money, they will just put it on hold for a few years and then reboot it

Definitely makes you miss the days when you would go to the movies and be pleasantly surprised by what you saw. I will never forget that magical year of 1988, when it seemed like the movies still had the ability to show you things you hadn't seen before. These days, it's just the same old, same old.

I blame you, Megatron! (Or whatever the hell your name is!)

COMIC BOOK MOVIES ARE NOW AFFECTING COMIC BOOK SALES! Just ask GROOT!

COMIC BOOK MOVIES ARE NOW AFFECTING COMIC BOOK SALES! Just ask GROOT!

By Barry Dutter





Movies based on comic books do not significantly affect the sales of comic books. This has been conventional wisdom for almost 50 years, ever since the first Batman movie came out in 1966.


Over the past five decades, comic fans have been treated to dozens of big-budget movies starring their favorite super-heroes -- everything from the Superman films with Christopher Reeve to more Batman movies to Spider-Man, the X-Men, Swamp Thing, Blade and more.


And through it all, one constant has remained: none of these movies has ever resulted in a sharp increase in sales of the characters featured in those movies.

In other words, movies do not create new comic book fans. There are now a couple of generations of movie-goers whose only exposure to characters like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man has been through blockbuster movies (and video games). The majority of these film-goers have not been inspired to go head to the local comics shop and seek out the source material.


But starting in 2011 with the release of the first AVENGERS movie, a curious phenomenon began to happen. That movie featured legendary Marvel villain Thanos in an after-the-end-credits cameo, and it was heavily rumored that the mad Titan was going to be the main villain in AVENGERS 2.

Sales of Thanos’ first comic book appearance (IRON MAN #55) began to go up. That book now goes for $300 to $400 in VF to NM condition.


That is the first example I can recall of a Marvel or DC back issue going up in value because of a movie or TV show. That started a trend where seemingly every time a Marvel (and now DC) movie was announced, it spurred back issue sales of whichever characters were making their cinematic debuts in that movie.


We’ve seen Deadpool in a movie before (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE), but that wasn’t the DEADPOOL that fans know and love. When in 2015 it was announced that there would be a real Deadpool movie, featuring the actual character (and costume) from

the comics, the price of New Mutants #98 skyrocketed. What had been a $100 to $150 book until recently was now a solid $250 to $300 highly-sought collectible.


The trend has even started involving movies that are years away. A complete set of Marvel’s CIVIL WAR series skyrocketed up to $125 when it was announced as the sub-title of CAPTAIN AMERICA 3. And the INFINITY GAUNTLET Limited Series now fetches $100 and up since it will serve as the basis for AVENGERS 3 & 4 -- movies coming out in 2018 and 2019!

DC has come very late to the “shared movie universe” party, but now that they have announced an ambitious slate of new movies to come over the next few years, sales of their key back issues are being affected as well.


The most obvious example I can think of is the New 52 version of SUICIDE SQUAD #1. That back issue was semi-hot since it came out in 2011, but now that the Squad will be featured in a big-budget movie starring Will Smith as Deadshot, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and Jared Leto as the Joker, the 2011 first issue of that series is a solid $80 to $100 and will surely continue to rise in value as we get closer to the release of the film. 

I can't think on any example of comic back issue prices being affected by movies prior to Thanos in 2011. You didn’t see the first appearance of the Silver Surfer go up significantly in price because he was featured in a FANTASTIC FOUR sequel. You didn’t see prices go up on the first Joker or Luthor after the characters were featured in Super man and Batman movies. Even recently, you didn’t see Spider-Man characters like the Green Goblin or X-Men characters like Gambit go up after those characters made their movie debuts.


No, the trend really seems to have started with Thanos -- who, ironically, turned out to not be the villain in AVENGERS 2. (But will surely play huge roles in AVENGERS 3 & 4.)


Incredibly, the first appearances of entire GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY team have gone up in value, after the smash success of the movie -- and in many cases, those appearances could have been had for just a few bucks up until the movie was announced.


A few years ago, the first appearance of Rocket Raccoon was worth its 60-cent cover price, at best, if you could get someone to pay that much for it. Rocket was a throwaway character, a funny animal in a world of super-heroes, of little interest to most Marvel fans.

Then it was announced that Rocket would be appearing in the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie. That 60 cent issue of THE INCREDIBLE HULK now sells for $100 and up. There is even a much rarer “1^st true appearance” of Rocket in a Black and white mag called MARVEL PREVIEW. That mag, which you could have gotten for a buck or two a few years ago, now sells for up to $500 on eBay.

A different issue of MARVEL PREVIEW featuring the first appearance of STAR-LORD, sells for $300 on average, and I see graded copies listed at $1,000.


STRANGE TALES #180 -- the first appearance of GAMORA -- lists for $80 to $100 on eBay.

But wait -- here’s the one that really blows my mind: A mid-grade copy of the first appearance of GROOT (TALES TO ASTONISH #13) is listed at $3500 on ebay right now.


Marvel made magic happen when they released Guardians -- a movie about a team of super-heroes that most people had never heard of, and even the people who heard of them didn’t like them very much -- and it became the biggest hit of the year. It remains to be seen whether Marvel can make lightning strike twice with the upcoming ANTMAN --a movie that no one demanded!


But one thing is for sure: demand for early Ant-Man appearances has never been higher.

The movie features Scott Lang and Hank Pym, both of whom have worn the Ant-Man costume in the comics. As you might have expected, back issues prices for both characters were affected.


The first appearances of Scott Lang, in MARVEL PREMIERE #47-48 (1979) now sell for about $100 for the pair.


But what of the first appearance of Hank Pym, who was just a regular non-costumed scientist in his 1962 debut in TALES TO ASTONISH #27?


That issue is very hard to find in decent condition. … A quick eBay search shows 4 copies, all graded. Three of them are in poor condition (3.0 or lower) and list for $1600 and up. The copy that is in the best condition is graded 7.0. How much does it sell for?


I'll tell you. (Are you sitting down?) A staggering $15,000. Yes, you read that right.

All because of a movie that hasn’t even come out yet.


One last piece of evidence? Consider the fate of Howard the Duck, a character whose 1986 movie was such a huge bomb, it seemingly poisoned the character and made film-goers never want to see him again. That 80s flop did not affect back issue sales of Howard comics at all.


Howard was largely forgotten as a character by Marvel. A few attempts to revive the character in recent years were largely ignored by fans.


Then Howard was featured in a 30-second cameo at the end of GUARDIANS. Suddenly, those ice-cold Howard the Duck comics started warming up again. Howard’s first appearance in ADVENTURE INTO FEAR #19 is a solid $60 book, and HOWARD THE DUCK #1 (1976) is also $60.

I can’t think of anything that shows off the effect of Hollywood movies on comics back issue sales better than that. If a brief movie cameo can make Howard hot again, I suppose anything is possible. (There’s hope for SQUIRREL GIRL yet!)


So there you have it. Judging by current sales figures, it seems unlikely that movies based on comic books are inspiring any non-comics fans to seek out the modern comics featuring those heroes of the silver screen.


But the movies sure are getting comic fans to seek out those key first appearances and number ones.

　










　




　




　




　




　

IN DEFENSE OF STAN THE MAN

By  Barry Dutter

I never thought I would writing an article defending Stan Lee. Since I was 10 years old, Stan has been my idol. My hero. The man whose career I have most tried to emulate. (I even wrote the Bullpen Bulletins for about 5 years in the 90s -- just like Stan!)
One would think such a legendary figure in the comics world would not need defending from anyone.
But there are a number of Jack Kirby tribute groups on the Internet that spend a considerable amount of time denigrating the work of Jack’s frequent collaborator, the esteemed Mr. Lee.
The general theme of the posts on these sites is along the lines of, “Stan didn’t really write those stories. Kirby and Ditko really wrote the stories. Stan was just the scripter. And even then, he just took the dialogue that guys like Kirby wrote in the margins and polished it up a little bit.”
Now, let’s put things in perspective. When Marvel launched an all-new line of  superhero comics in 1961, Stan was the primary writer, and he did type up plots for the stories.
There exists a plot to Fantastic Four #1, written by Stan. You can read it online. It’s incredibly loose and leaves a lot to the artist’s imagination, (and was presumably based on discussions Stan had with Jack beforehand). But clearly, at least in the beginning, Stan was writing plots for the Marvel books that his artists would work from.
There came a time when Marvel started publishing so many books, it became physically impossible for Stan to plot and script all of them, so he began to delegate the plotting duties to his trusted artists like Kirby, Ditko, Wally Wood and Gene Colan. Reportedly Stan would sometimes give the artist a one-line description of the plot, like “Daredevil helps the FF fight Dr. Doom” -- and the artist would flesh out that idea into a full story.
Stan would then add the dialogue and captions later, and he did so with such flair and such panache that generations of writers who came later imitate his

style to this day.
As time went on, Stan was often too busy to even give his artists that one line description. (Steve Ditko is credited as “Plotter” of his final Spider-Man issues.)
But there seems to be no argument that the actual scripts for all those early Marvels were written by Stan. He wrote every word of every page of the first 100 issues of Spider-Man (plus annuals), the first 100+ issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, and countless stories of the Hulk, Sub-Mariner, X-Men, the Avengers, Dr. Strange, etc.
To those who say that Stan was just a glorified typist on those books, consider this: both Kirby and Ditko went on to write the bulk of their own work after they stopped working with Stan. None of the work that Kirby and Ditko did on their own was ever as well-written as the work they did with Stan. Kirby, in particular, had a real tin ear for dialogue. His dialogue always sounded so stiff and unnatural.
In the early 1960s, Stan Lee revolutionized the comics medium by writing dialogue that was smart, loose, and felt “real.” No one had ever heard comic book characters sound like that before. His work was smart, snappy and sarcastic. Stan wrote characters who talked the same way you or I do.
And no one has ever accused Kirby or Ditko of writing dialogue that sounded like the way real people speak.
But Stan didn't just write thousand of pages of great stories. His was the voice of Marvel. He wrote the letters pages and the Bullpen Bulletins pages, too.
He created a house style that was so friendly, so inviting, it made each reader feel like he was part of the Marvel family. Stan made each Marvelite feel like he was a member of a private club with its own secret language. (Hang Loose! Face Front! ‘Nuff said! Etc. )
There are those who will point to the work that Kirby did after he left Marvel -- THE NEW GODS, THE FOREVER PEOPLE, KAMANDI, MISTER MIRACLE, JIMMY OLSEN -- and say it was as imaginative and as great as any of the work he did at Marvel.
To this I will reply: have you actually tried to read any of those books? Honestly, they are mostly unreadable. Just try to make it through any issue of any one of those mags. You may have enjoyed them as a kid, but trust me when I say, they do not hold up.
Now go back and read any issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN or FANTASTIC FOUR that Stan wrote in the 60s. Some of them may seem a  little corny, a little old-fashioned, but you know what? They all have a certain charm. They all hold up today.
Stan was the first comic book writer that wrote comics that could be enjoyed by children, college students, and adults -- all at the same time. He told stories that were clear and fun, populated by characters who all spoke with different voices (a skill that seems to have been forgotten by most modern writers).

When you read stories written by Kirby and Ditko, all the heart, humanity and humor of the Stan Lee stories simply isn't there. Ditko and Kirby were incredibly imaginative artists whose work has been highly influential -- but writing has never been their strong suit.
Both men needed the work of a true craftsman to take their ideas and mold them into great stories.
“But Jack Kirby created hundreds and hundreds of characters after he stopped working with Stan,” you say. “And Stan hasn’t created any worthwhile characters in decades!”
Well, let’s break this down. Out of all the characters that Jack Kirby created since the dissolution of the Lee/Kirby team in 1971, how many of those characters have been as popular and beloved as the ones he created with Stan?
You can point to the Demon, the Forever People, the New Gods. Maybe OMAC, or Kamandi… but can you honestly say that any of those characters have caught on with the American public in the same manner as the Hulk? The Silver Surfer? The X-Men? The Avengers?
Not even close.
And as much as you might have enjoyed Ditko's creations, The Creeper and Shade the Changing Man, you must admit that neither of those characters has exactly set the comics world on fire.
The characters that Stan and Jack (and Steve Ditko) created together form the foundation of the Marvel Universe. Without those heroes, there would in all likelihood be no Marvel Comics today.
“But Kirby’s concepts are constantly being revived,” you say. “The Demon gets a new series every couple of years. So do the New Gods.”
This is true, and both of those series have their cult audiences. But neither has truly captivated the comics-buying public the same way those early Lee/Kirby characters did.
In fact, I can only name one character that Kirby created after 1971 that has truly won the hearts of comics fans, and that’s Darkseid. He has transcended his New Gods roots to become one of the top villains in the DC Universe. He has gone on to challenge Superman, the Legion of Super Heroes and the Justice League, and he has appeared in countless cartoons and seems destined for big-screen stardom.
As for Stan?  I would argue that Stan also has one notable character he created after 1971: the She-Hulk in 1980.
The She-Hulk came about not because of creative reasons but for copyright reasons only. Marvel had to publish a female version of the Hulk that they would own the rights to because if they didn’t, Universal, which was then producing the Hulk TV show, could do a TV movie starring a female version of the Hulk that they would own the rights to.
She-Hulk was not welcomed into the Marvel Universe with open arms, but over time, fans came to embrace her as a member of the Avengers and the FF, and in several long-running series of her own.
It can safely be said that She-Hulk has earned a place alongside the classic Marvel heroes. She bears little resemblance to the savage bruiser created by Stan in 1980, but still, the initial spark of the character was there from the start.
So there you go: I will give Stan and Jack one character each since 1971: Darkseid and She-Hulk. The others are all pretty forgettable.
“But Stan takes credit for characters he didn’t even create, like the Silver Surfer, who was entirely a Kirby creation. Stan hadn’t even written the Surfer into the plot!” Stan has always credited Kirby for coming up with the concept and the visual for the Surfer. But it was Stan’s words that brought the Surfer to life. Kirby created the vessel, but Lee gave him a soul.
“But the quality of Stan’s work has declined considerably since 1970,”  you say. To which I reply, name me a comic writer whose work hasn’t declined as they got older! Most comic book writers do their best work when they are in their 20s and 30s. Stan created the FF when he was 38, Spider-Man and the most of the rest of the Marvel Universe when he was 39. The real miracle is that he had his most creative peak from ages 40 to 50. That’s almost unheard of in comics.

And one could also that the quality of Kirby and Ditko’s work also declined as they got older. But again, this is a pretty normal occurrence. It’s called aging. It happens to all of us!
It’s worth noting that Kirby was 44 when he co-created the Fantastic Four, and his mid-to late 40s were perhaps the most creative streak ever seen by any artist in the history of  comics.
Why were Lee and Kirby both inspired to do the best work of their careers in their forties? And why did very little of the work they did before (or since) show that same level of greatness?

Steve Ditko, self-portrait

The answer is that Stan & Jack needed each other. Just as Captain America needed Bucky… just as Mr. Fantastic needed the Invisible Girl… just as Peter Parker needed… um… his Aunt May, I guess… so were Stan and Jack (and Steve) codependent on each other.
Lee and Kirby were an unbeatable team. Separately, neither man ever did any work that was as good as what they did together. Theirs was a mythic pairing that truly changed the world of comics for the better.
So the next time you see someone trashing Stan’s writing, remind them that Ditko and Kirby simply could not have done it without him.
That was the magic of the early Marvel Universe. And no amount of revisionist history can ever change that. I know that sometimes in the media, Stan is given too much credit for “single-handedly” creating the Marvel Universe. But to deny him any credit at all seems insulting to his legacy.
Truly Stan Lee was the greatest superhero writer (and in my eyes, the best comic book writer) of all time.
There’s only one possible word that can end this article, and every true Marvelite knows what it is: Excelsior!

Think you know everything about Batman? So did I! Then I sat down and read a book reprinting the first dozen or so Batman stories in chronological order. Turns out I hardly knew the Caped Crusader at all! In honor of Batman’s 75th anniversary, join me as I reveal…

10 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE BATMAN

By Barry Dutter


1) THE ORIGINAL BATMOBILE WAS RED! It’s true! In the first eight  Batman stories, the Dark Knight shuttled around town in a red roadster. (In one story, the red Batmobile is is shown to be the same car driven by Bruce Wayne! Way to preserve that secret identity, Bruce!) It was in the ninth Batman story that the classic Batmobile appears in the familiar blue color we all came to know in love. In the next issue, Bats was back to driving the red car again before he finally switched to blue permanently.

2) BRUCE WAYNE SMOKED A PIPE! Every time we see BRUCE WAYNE in the early issues, he is smoking a pipe, usually while lounging around Wayne Manor. Although many heroes smoked cigars in the 70s, I can't remember the last time I saw any major Marvel or DC hero smoke anything. 

3) BATMAN CARRIED A GUN! It’s true! He didn’t carry one very often, and he rarely used it. But the splash page to one of his early appearances in DETECTIVE COMICS shows the Caped Crusader proudly brandishing a pistol, as if it were a regular thing for him. Back in those days, pulp heroes like The Shadow and the Spider always carried guns, and I guess in the beginning, the creators of Batman were thinking that was the logical direction for him to go in. I’m not sure when Bats stopped using a gun, but certainly by 1954, with the formation of the Comics Code, that was the end of that.

4) BATMAN IS A CASUAL MURDERER! In his very first adventure, Batman accidentally kills the bad

guy by throwing him into a chemical explosion. In the next issue, Bats kicks a thug off the roof of a skyscraper. (We never see the dead body, but it seems unlikely any normal man could survive that.) Over the next few issues, Batman piles up an impressive body count for a hero.When three homeless men are turned into giant ogres, Bats make sure to kill each one. (The option of curing them is never mentioned!)
Any time a villain attacks

Batman with a  knife or a sword, Bats always finds a way to turn the weapon back on his attacker and stab them real good. You have to wonder how many times the police showed up at a crime scene and yet another dead hood who had “accidentally fallen on his own knife.”  In another issue, Batman encounters a deadly vampire, and shoots the monster with a  silver bullet -- while the vampire is asleep in his coffin! Comics were so much more fun before the Comics Code came along in the fifties and neutered everything for the next 30 or 40 years.

5) ROBIN LEFT BEHIND A FEW CORPSES, TOO! You might think the arrival of the cheerful and eager young Robin might stop the bloodshed. But it turns out, Robin was pretty good at murder, too! It seems Batman trained his young protégé all too well. In his first adventure with Batman, Robin battles a thug high atop a construction site. The thug is trying to knock Robin off a girder to his death. But Robin successfully evades the thug. An acrobatic kick causes to thug to fall many stories to the street below -- surely, to his death!

6) BRUCE WAYNE  WAS ENGAGED! In one of his earliest adventures, Bruce Wayne reveals that he has a fiancée, an actress named Julie Madison. But Bruce doesn’t seem interested in spending much time with Julie. Mostly Bruce wants to go out and catch bad guys as Batman or hang out with his friend, Commissioner Gordon. Sometimes it seems like the only way Julie can spend time with her fiancé is when she gets involved in one of Batman’s adventures. The engagement didn’t last long before it got called off. According to Wkipedia, “Julie…ended her engagement to Bruce on the grounds that she felt that he ought to do something worthwhile with his life rather than just being a fun-loving playboy (she still did not know of his secret activities).” She was gone from the book after about a year and a half. A modern version of Julie was recently introduced in Batman comics. She is referred to as a woman from Bruce Wayne’s past. 


7) BATMAN WAS WANTED BY THE COPS! I remember as a kid, growing up reading Spider-Man comics in the 70s, it always seemed radical to me that Spidey was wanted by the cops. Turns out, Batman had done the same shtick before, about 30 years earlier! The police aggressively pursued Batman in the early days. They would usually arrive too late, at the end of an adventure, just after Batman had captured the bad guy. The cops would mistakenly think that Batman was involved in committing the crimes, so they would shoot at him, but Batman would always get away. (Sound familiar, Spider-Fans?) Bats must have taken particular delight in knowing that his good friend, Commissioner Gordon, would often share crime news with him, never suspecting that Bruce was actually the vigilante, Batman!

8) WOMEN ARE HIS WEAKNESS!  The first bunch of Batman stories present the Caped Crusader as a very moral, upright citizen, willing to do whatever it takes to uphold the law and see to it that evil-doers are punished -- unless they are sexy babes! The first time Batman and Robin encounter Catwoman, Bats lets her get away at the end by blocking Robin as the Boy Wonder lunges after her. Robin pretty quickly figures out what Bruce has done and why he has done it. But Bruce offers no apologies. The understanding seems to be, “Look, she was hot, she turned me on, and I’m sure I’ll see her again!” Robin clearly does not approve, but even his teenage mind knows there are some things even superheroes are powerless against.


9) BATMAN IS KINKY! In that same issue (BATMAN #1), Batman catches Catwoman disguised as an old lady, in the midst of a jewel heist. Batman starts to remove her old age make-up.  Catwoman protests, but Batman shuts her up with, “Quiet or papa spank!” Papa spank? Huh! Who knew the Dark Knight had a playful side? He never talked to the Joker like that!

10) BRUCE WAYNE IS SO RICH, HE DOES WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS!  In the first 10 or 15 Batman stories, Bruce Wayne is portrayed as a bored playboy.  He is never shown working. Mostly he just hangs out with Jim Gordon and talks about police business. There is no mention of Wayne Enterprises. (Apparently that came along later.) Bruce seems to enjoy the life of a lazy rich man. In one issue, Bruce gets the idea of how to trap a jewel thief. He muses, “Maybe I’ll write an article for the newspaper to lure the thief into a trap.” The next day, Bruce’s article appears on the front page of the Gotham Gazette. But wait --Bruce just randomly decides to write an article and it ends up on the front page of the newspaper?” Or does he just buy the front page and tell them to print his article?

Lots of unanswered questions in those early Batman comics. Fortunately, many of these issues were resolved as the series went on. It was fun for me to find out all these secrets from Batman’s past and learn that even a 75-year old hero can still surprise you. Next up? Superman!

17 THINGS I LEARNED SELLING COMICS ON EBAY

By Barry Dutter

I started collecting comic books in 1974 when I was 9 years old. Over the next 30 years, I amassed a collection of about 10,000 comics. There came a day when I didn’t have room for the comics any more and I needed to make some cash. So I sold the comics, piece by piece,  on eBay. I didn’t think I could do it, but once I started selling, it just got easier and easier. 
I had so much fun selling my comics, that I decided it might be fun to sell other people‘s comics, too. I

One of the few 90s books that is actually worth money today.

started going around to local garage sales, and scouring Craigslist, buying up all the collections I could find. Now I buy and sell comics on eBay all the time. It’s turned into a pretty profitable sideline for me. Best of all, it gives me an excuse to go to comic cons and it makes me feel like I’m still working in the comics industry, as tenuous a connection though it might be.
Here are the things I learned selling comics online.


1) All comics from the 1990s are worthless. That’s right -- all of them! Marvel, DC, Image, Valiant, doesn’t matter which ones. All completely worthless. There are a few of exceptions, to be sure, (X-Men #266, New Mutants #87 and 98, to name three) but for the most part, comics from the 1990s were brutally overprinted. Doesn’t matter if the price says “$2.00” on the cover. All are worth pennies or less.
That was perhaps the biggest shock to me as a reseller -- that even comics that were deemed “hot” at the time (like Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man or Jim Lee’s X-Men) all completely worthless now. Obviously there are exceptions -- “First Appearances” will always be hot. But these days, if someone is selling a huge collection of 90s comics, I run the other way. Even if someone were to give me a box of 90s comics for free, I would take all the comics out and give them away and keep the bags and boards. They’re worth far more than the comics.

2) Buyers love complete sets and TPBs. These days, most comics stories are mult-part epics that are usually reprinted as TPB’s. When buying online, people want the complete story, whether it be in collected form or as the original “floppies.” There’s  no reason for anyone to buy an incomplete set online when they know they can always get it complete from another seller. If you are selling a bunch of comics, make sure you have a complete set. Because if you don’t, you’d better be prepared to take a huge loss on the comics.

3) The New 52 made old DC Comics Obsolete. In September, 2011, DC launched The New 52, a reboot of their whole line, starting every title over with #1. This was a great jumping on point for new readers, making it possible for a fan to own every single title in the current continuity. This also had the effect of making the previous four decades worth of DC Comics undesirable to collectors. There will always be a demand for Golden Age and Silver Age DC Comics, but interest in Bronze and Modern Age DC comics has dropped off considerably. Thanks to the New 52, those stories no longer count, and therefore, are a  lot less collectable.

4) The Punisher’s life is not worth a plug nickel. Comics are very cyclical. What’s hot today might be ice cold tomorrow. No character better illustrates this than the Punisher. At the peak of his fame in the 1990s, he had 3 monthly books (not to mention various one-shots, graphic novels, guest appearances, crossovers, etc.) Now he can’t even sustain one monthly book. The end result of all those 90s appearances is that people got tired of the Punisher. The same thing happened to Lobo over at DC. Once one of DC’s most popular heroes, Lobo couldn’t even get his own series when DC rebooted 52 titles. Nothing kills interest in a B-list character like overexposure.


5) There is a Mind-Boggling lack of interest in Bronze Age Marvels. I grew up in the 1970s, which was an incredibly fertile time for Marvel Comics. So many talented writers and artists came up in the 70s with work that was exciting and fresh: Jim Starlin, Steve Englehart, John Byrne, Frank Brunner, Steve Gerber -- the list is a lengthy one. And there were so many radically different types of comics offered by Marvel at this time. Everything from HOWARD THE DUCK to MAN-THING to MASTER OF KUNG FU to IT THE LIVING COLOSSUS.Yet most Bronze Age Marvels generate very little interest in comics buyers online today.
As a huge Marvel fan, it blows my mind that comic buyers today don’t want to read the books that I grew up with. But I guess I can understand it. When I was a young man reading comics in the 1970s, I probably would not have enjoyed comics that my father was reading in the 1940s or 50s. They were made a for a  different generation.

6) Key issues always sell well. When Action Comics #1 sold for $3.2 million on eBay recently, I was not surprised. That is not just a  key issue --the first appearance of Superman -- it is one of the most important comics of all time. And if there is one thing I know about key issues is that they tend to hold their value. The person who bought Action #1 this year could probably sell it for $5 million in a year or two. And that buyer could then sell it for $10 million down the line. Books like that never go down in value.
It’s the same with most key issues. New Mutants #98 -- the first Deadpool -- was a solid $50 book for me in recent years. But now that a Deadpool solo movie has been announced, I see it selling for no less than $150 on eBay.
Which brings me to my next point…


7) Movies are now driving up the back issue sales of comics. One of the fun things about living in a time when so many comic book based movies are being released is that for the first time in memory, comic-book based movies are actually increasing back issue prices of comics. (OK, fun for a seller, maybe not so much fun for a  buyer!)
Case in point: a few years ago, I had a bunch of old INCREDIBLE HULK comics from the 80s. One of the issues was HULK #271, the first appearance of ROCKET RACCOON.  I ended up selling them for about 25 cents each. There is very little interest in this particular period in the Hulk’s history, so I was happy to find a buyer at any price.
Flash forward to 2014. Rocket is now starring in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, the biggest movie of the year, and his first appearance is now selling for $100 or more!
No one could ever predicted that a goofy minor character from a 1982 issues of INCREDIBLE HULK would be starring in the biggest movie of the year.
Other examples: the first appearance of THANOS went up after his cameo in the AVENGERS movie… and sales of Ultron comics are going up in anticipation of the upcoming AVENGERS sequel.
Conventional wisdom says that TV shows never boost the sales of comic books. But THE WALKING DEAD has certainly disproven that. The TV show seems to be feeding fans back to the comic and vice versa. THE WALKING DEAD is really an anomaly in both TV and comics. The success of this franchise defies all the rules. 

8) Marvel’s Ultimate line is a bust. When Marvel introduced their Ultimate line in the year 2000, it was a good idea in theory: a reboot of the Marvel Universe, starting from scratch, with new origins, now powers, new costumes for all the heroes -- with stories crafted by the biggest names in comics! How could it lose?  Well, it turns out that comics fans are extremely loyal to the OMU (Original Marvel Universe.) This means that any attempt to do a different version is going to have to be better than what has gone before.
The consensus seemed to be that while the Ultimate Universe was pretty good, it was not significantly better than the OMU, which was still being published simultaneously. Fans voted with their wallets, and the OMU continues today, while the Ultimate Universe just keeps limping along, with fewer and fewer titles all the time.
When Galactus from the OMU visited the Ultimate Universe and attempted to devour it in a limited series, it seemed that few Marvel fans would have minded if Galactus had finished his “meal.”
Ironically, one of the key selling points of the Ultimate Universe -- the fact that all the books were starting from number one, thus making it easy for new readers to come aboard -- quickly became a moot point. Fourteen years later, the Ultimate Universe  is just as bogged down in continuity as the OMU.
I find I get zero interest when I list Ultimate Universe comics on eBay. Other than Ultimate Spider-man #1, and maybe the issue where Peter Parker dies, no one seems to care about the Ultimate Universe. It’s reached a point where I won’t even bother trying to sell most Ultimate Universe  titles. Not worth my time. (The same goes for Marvel’s New Universe from 1986!)

9) If every Marvel and DC hero went away except for Batman and Spider-Man, fans would be fine with that. Occasionally I will have comic fans stop buy the house to did through my comic boxes, looking fir books to buy. I always ask them, “What are you looking for? Then answer is the same every time: Spider-Man and Batman. When buyers pick through a box, they always pick out all the Spider-Man and Batman comics and leave everything else behind. Some times I think if Marvel published nothing but Spider-man comics and DC published 52 Batman titles a month, fans would be fine with that.

10) The only Spider-man book that counts is AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. When I was a kid, I used to enjoy 4 different monthly Spidey books: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, WEB OF SPIDER-MAN, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, and MARVEL TEAM-UP. All would vary in quality  from month to month, but I never considered any of the books to be more or less important than the others. All were books that featured my favorite hero, good ol’ Spidey! After I started selling on eBay, I quickly learned that as far as most fans are concerned, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is the only book that matters. I sold off my collections of WEB OF SPIDER-MAN, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, and MARVEL TEAM-UP for pennies. But AMAZING SPIDER-MAN -- particularly the issues from 1962 to 1985 or so -- can bring in big bucks.
It seemed that Marvel gradually learned this lesson over time. They used to publish 4 different Spidey books a month, but eventually they figured out it made more sense to simply publish the one Spidey title that people actually care about -- AMAZING -- as many times a month as possible.
 
11) DC fans love Nightwing. Based on my eBay sales, I would say DC’s 3 most popular heroes are Batman, Harley Quinn, and Nightwing. (National comic sales seem to echo this trend.) That’s why I was so surprised recently by the events of DC’s FOREVER EVIL mini-series, which had Nightwing’s secret identity exposed to the world. Following that, they canceled Nightwing’s book and launched Dick Grayson in a new ongoing series called GRAYSON. The character is now a secret agent instead of a super-hero. Aside from the fact that this makes no sense (the most publicly known super-hero in the DCU is now a secret agent?) it also robs the DCU of one of their most popular heroes. I know that most changes in comics are temporary, but I think DC needs to get back to the status quo on this one ASAP. DC fans cannot live without their Nightwing!

12) American comics are beloved all over the world! There was a time when my biggest buyers on eBay were other comic book sellers from around the world. They would buy up all my comics for as cheaply as possible, with the intention of selling them overseas for big profits. I had buyers in France, Australia, England, and one ultra-competitive buyer in Russia who was like the Terminator of buyers. He would ruthlessly outbid everybody!
The only problem I found with selling to overseas is that foreign comic book dealers are always broke! They would never have any money to pay me. They were really good at bidding and winning auctions, but when it came time to actually pay for their items, their wallets were always empty. I would have to wait a few weeks for them to make some money before they would have enough to pay me for their books.
Many foreign buyers will lie to you and say the reason they can’t pay is because they are “having trouble with their Paypal account.”  The actual trouble is that they “have no money.”  I finally ended up banning all international sales from my eBay store. I got tired of hearing the same old lies from buyers who have no money.

13) Modern Comics are where it’s at. One of the most shocking things I’ve found is you can actually make money selling Modern Comics on eBay. By Modern I should note here that I am only referring to comics released after the year 2000. Comics have very low print runs these days, making many of them hard to find. You know the old saying about “Supply and Demand.": Well, it definitely applies here. Modern comics are so expensive at retail -- most of them are in the $3 to $4 range -- that if you can pick up a few boxes of them for 25 cents or even 50 cents per comic, you can sell them for less than cover price and still make a decent profit. I know a few sellers who won’t even bother selling Golden or Silver Age comics. They just don’t want to deal with having to grading books and disappointed buyers asking for refunds because the books were not in the exact condition as advertised!


14) A collection of Silver Age Marvels is worth way more than a collection of Silver Age DC’s. If you ever have a choice to buy a  collection of  Silver Age Marvels from 1961-65 or a collection of Silver Age DC’s from the same time period, take the Marvels. The DC  Collection could be worth a few thousands dollars. The Marvel collection could be worth millions.
The reason? DC was basically treading water in the 60s. They didn’t introduce many new characters, and the old ones were just maintaining the status quo. Marvel, on the other hand, was revolutionizing the industry, introducing a spate of new characters like the X-Men, the Hulk, the Avengers,  Iron Man, and a certain Webbed Wonder.
The characters that Marvel launched from 1961 to 1965 were so popular and so beloved by fans, that they formed the foundation that company is still built on even today.

15) Variant covers are overrated. These days, there are at least two versions of every major Marvel and DC comic -- the standard version and at least one “Variant cover.” Most comic sellers (both online and in comic shops) usually jack up the prices on these Variant covers, with the thinking being that the variants are more valuable, because they are more rare. But my experience has been that most variants are not worth much more than the standard versions. Unless you have something truly rare, like a 1 in 50 variant or a 1 in 100, you’re not going to make much money. 1 in 10 variants are actually fairly common and usually not worth the effort to list.

16) Indie Comics from the 80s = No Sale today. The 1980s were a fun time to be a comics fan. So many new companies were sprouting up (First Comics, Now Comics, Eclipse, Pacific), introducing new characters by a  mix of older creators and young upstarts. Among the more popular characters from the era: Dreadstar, Jon Sable, Grimjack, American Flagg, Badger, the Elementals, Nexus. As much as I may have enjoyed these titles  back in the day, I can’t give those books away today. For the most part, I won’t even bother trying to sell them. Sadly, I find that nobody cares about any of them, other than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Times change. Tastes change. And as history has shown us, only the Ninja Turtles shall endure!

17) B-list Marvel Heroes are a Tough Sell:  With Marvel, there are the A-list heroes like Spidey, Hulk and the X-Men. Then there are the B-list heroes, like Captain America, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four. I always have a tough time selling the B-list Marvel heroes on ebay. Although these second-tier heroes have found some success in the movies, the fact is that when it comes to most issues of THOR (post-Lee/Kirby) or DAREDEVIL (post Frank Miller), I can't give them away.

Those are just a few things I’ve learned over the past ten years selling comics online. I could, tell you more, but I have to get back to work. I have a few more boxes of comics to list on eBay!

identity exposed to the world. Following that, they canceled Nightwing’s book and launched Dick Grayson in a new ongoing series called GRAYSON. The character is now a secret agent instead of a super-hero.

Aside from the fact that this makes no sense (the most publicly known super-hero in the DCU is now a secret agent?) it also robs the DCU of one of their most popular heroes.

-- all completely worthless now. Obviously there are exceptions -- “First Appearances” will always be hot. But these days, if someone is selling a huge collection of 90s comics, I run the other way.