“The Hot Collectible of the 90’s!”
Okay pals, I know plenty of you reading this have been itchin’ to start a comic book collection of your very own. Well, everyone give a big thanks to the 1990s because they’ve got you covered with these two exciting packages!
First up is the Comic Book Starter Kit, original retail price, as it says right there, a mere three dollars and ninety-nine cents:
Does this kit have everything I ever needed to start collecting?
OH THANK GOD. Let’s flip this sucker over and take a peek.
Whoa nelly, it’s pretty wild they went with Toxic Avenger #1 to entice folks into entering the hobby. But then again, maybe it grabbed a few fans of Troma Films, so who am I to judge. Anyway, more on that comic in a second.
Here’s a closer look at the content list:
Okay, so let’s see. The New Warriors cover price was a buck, the Toxie book is $1.50, the 20 almost certainly polyethylene bags let’s say retail at about a nickel each for a total of a buck…we’re at $3.50 so far. With the Jim Lee cover-of-X-Men-#2 poster and that swank comic collecting guide…well, depending on how you feel about those I guess that can make up the $0.50 balance. A pretty good deal overall.
I have to admit I am this close to busting open the package so I can read what this guide has to say (though it’s probably just this):
…but I think it’s more of an interesting novelty item leaving it intact. Oh, and by the way, while I wanted to snicker at the “2 highly collectible comic [sic]” fact of the matter is that Toxic Avenger #1 does sell for a little bit of a premium. One of those speculator apps has it at $35, which ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at. Only took 30 years to septuple your money, you clever investor you. I didn’t bother to look up the New Warriors issue…if it’s an $1800 book or something let me know. Before you buy it.
Anyway, the other collector’s pack I took in was this ’90s all-over bundle:
A mere fin for five…well, dollar comics, I guess it’s a push ’90s retail-wise. But for your convenience you have a couple two part stories gathered together here, so you don’t have to hunt them down. And you know these are good comics to have because it says right on the package:
It has a ™ on it so it has to be true.
And what’s this?
Don’t you threaten me.
Flipping it over they make good on said threat, with a copy from what must have been a vastly overprinted run:
Here’s a guide to what’s inside, and, y’know, for five bucks I guess this is okay:
The way this is packaged, the last line of the contents is cut off, so we may never know what Spider-Man lends to NFL™ Superpro. It probably says “hand,” but it could be “ten bucks.”
In terms of today’s value, I don’t believe any of these became huge collectibles. I mean, maybe the Spider-Man issues have a little premium attached to them, though they’re hardly the most in-demand parts of the run. There was some brief demand for Sleepwalker of late, but sorry, no demand for NFL Superpro. Maybe if it was NFT Superpro…nope, wait, just checked, too late for those, too.
Like I mentioned, I’m probably selling these intact as the novelties they are, so whoever buys them can bust ’em open or leave them as is. Whatever they want to do, because as this headbanded hero “Treat” ( think) says:
WELL SAID.
Hey Mike, there is an episode of the Comic Book Time Machine podcast where the host favorably reviews that guide to collecting. Apparently it is not of the “Mortgage your house and buy Deathmate” variety…Though that might actually be funny in the old Wizard Hot 10 list way.
No idea how to find it among all the other “Grab bag” episodes, though.
Interesting that they list all five comics on the back of the package. If I remember my Whitman 3-packs, you knew what the front and back comics were, but that one in the middle was a crapshoot.
Blast from the past! I got that exact Spider-Man pack along with another that had Spectacular 185 and I think a couple parts of the Round Robin story back when I first started collecting comics. Thanks to those I had a somewhat skewed notion of the importance of the Tri-Sentinel, Sleepwalker, and Frog-Man when I was a kid.
Reminds me of the old 3 packs, which I miss. “Hey kid, get an issue of Star Wars and an issue of Spider-man! We ain’t gonna tell you the junk that’s in between them, though!”
I loved those old comic 3-packs. They were my introduction to the X-Men in the early ’80s. A weirdly life-changing trip to Target.
The combined might of John Romita Sr, Ron Frenz, and Joe Sinnott, and that’s the best cover “Superpro” could get?
I remember my mom buying me one of those three packs because it had an issue of the John Byrne run on “The Incredible Hulk” I was missing, and she figured it would be cheaper than buying the individual issue at a comic book store. Another issue in the package was Daredevil 228 (which I already owned, having bought it when it came out) and I think a Byrne Fantastic Four, so overall a pretty good set.
I know I had stated buying comics in the 90’s but can’t remember if I ever saw or bought one of these packs. I would think they would be at the grocery stores too back then.
I don’t know. With Netflix doing the Sand series, there might be a run on people wanting to find the comic that actually got it right.
Mike,
(I’m commenting here because I’m not twitter literate). The reversed THEY”RE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY is on the album as well, at least according to the cover.
That’s a nice find, by the way!
Steven – I realize that’s caused some confusion. That track was listed on the front cover by mistake…it is not actually on the record. It wouldn’t be until the CD reissue decades later that B-side would get paired with the full album.