Welcome to Cool Comics in My Collection Episode 52, where we take a nostalgic look at six cool comic books I currently own, and one that I let get away.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve put out one-years’ worth of episodes (49 written by me, and three guest hosts – Gary Wilton, Kevin Summers, and Hank Garner). Doing this blog has been a blast, and I appreciate all of the readers out there, along with all the nice comments I’ve received (especially Rob McClellan and the gang at the Comic Book Realm forums!).

So while I’m celebrating this achievement of seeing Cool Comics in My Collection hit its one-year anniversary, I’m also letting you know that the blog will be seeing some change. I put more time into doing this than meets the eye (I have to track all of this in several different documents and in various ways to make sure I don’t do any repeats!), and over the next couple years I need to concentrate a bit more on my fiction writing. So the change you’ll be seeing here is that my current format of covering seven comics a week is no longer the norm. What is the new norm, you ask? There isn’t one. Some weeks I might cover one comic, while the next week I might cover an entire mini-series. And on occasion I may also include other fun comic-related comments and items.

But the nostalgic aspect will remain. Also, I hope to get more guest hosts throughout the next year, so if you’ve been considering it, now is the time! Whether you want to cover one comic, or two, or seven, the choice is yours. It is my hope that you enjoy reading it and will continue walking down this comic book lane of memories with me.

For each of the comic books below, I list the current secondary market value. This is according to the listings at the website www.comicbookrealm.com. They list out the near mint prices, which are on the comic book grading scale of 9.4. If you go to the website to look up any in your collection, you can click on the price and see the value at different grades. Not all of my comics are 9.4. Some are probably better, and some are worse. But to simplify it, that’s the grading price I use here. And remember, a comic book is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Have you considered being a guest host for Cool Comics? You can do a theme or just pick any of your comics for inclusion (this blog is for all ages, so please keep that in mind), as long as there are seven comics in your episode (you can still own all seven, or do it like me and include one you no longer own). Repeat guest hosts are permitted and encouraged. Send your completed blog to edgosney62@gmail.com.

If you have any questions or comments, please scroll to the bottom of the page to where it says, “Leave a reply.” I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I do writing about them. And now, Episode 52…

Cool comics in my collection #337: Superman #306, December 1976.

Since this is my one-year anniversary of the blog, I wanted to include titles with characters I have a history with, or am a big fan of, or…just because these are popular comics. Superman has been a part of my life since I was a kid. I loved watching both the reruns of the old black and white TV series and the Saturday morning cartoon Super Friends. Another reason Superman is special to me is because my dad read Superman comics from the very beginning, and we had a special bond because of the Man of Steel. I remember going to the theater with him to watch the Christopher Reeve 1978 movie and how excited he was to see it. Then later, when the famous “Death of Superman” comic came out, he bought a copy for me and I started collecting all over again, and we both read Superman comics for a number of years. Great memories, and that’s what it’s all about. My dad, who passed away back in 2001, suffered through a couple heart attacks, double and then triple bypass surgeries, and four different bouts of cancer. And I never heard him complain. He was my real life superhero. The cover price of Superman #306 is 30 cents, while the current value is $10.

Cool comics in my collection #338: Thor #267, January 1978.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t real keen on Thor, but I picked up some reprint issues (Marvel Spectacular – although I didn’t realize they were reprints at the time), and then I got him monthly for a short time in the early eighties when I was a student at Ohio State. I remember watching the 1988 made-for-TV movie “The Incredible Hulk Returns,” which includes Thor, and how disappointed I was in the portrayal of the God of Thunder. The Sixties cartoon version that lacked much movement is far more interesting in my opinion. At any rate, I started reading Thor regularly in the Nineties and bought a number of back issues (this being one of them), and I’m enjoying reading them now, many years later. And I am happy with the current Thor movies and his appearances in the Avengers movies. He’s definitely become one of my favorite comic heroes. The cover price of Thor #267 is 35 cents, while the current value is $10.

Cool comics in my collection #339: Spider-Man and Batman #1, September 1995.

I read this comic 21 years ago when it came out, and I don’t remember much about it. It features the villains Joker and Carnage, and I don’t recall how they explained the melding of the two universes. But my point is, this is a Cool Comic in My Collection simply because of the two stars. When I was a kid, we would roll-play superhero games, but we knew there was no way Batman and Spider-Man would ever meet because they belonged to two different companies. But in 1995, a couple decades later, it came true! Batman is the first superhero I remember watching on TV. Do you remember the old Sixties campy series featuring Adam West? I was just a kid, born in 1962, and this show was magical to me. Then in the Seventies he was on Saturday mornings as part of the Super Friends, which was fun to watch as a kid. And Spider-Man had his own cartoon with a really awesome theme song, and I became a huge fan. And that’s why this comic book is cool. The cover price of Spider-Man and Batman #1 is $5.95, while the current value is $6.

Cool comics in my collection #340: Giant-Size Super-Heroes Featuring Spider-Man #1, June 1974.

The year 1974 produced awesome music, great monster magazines, cool TV shows, and one of my all-time favorite comic books. This Giant-Size Super-Heroes gives us not one, but two of Spider-Man’s “horror” enemies, Morbius, the Living Vampire, and the Man Wolf! I was a few months’ shy of turning twelve, and as soon as I saw this issue on the newsstand at Slicks, a little corner store in my small hometown of Martins Ferry, Ohio, I knew it had to be mine. My love of superheroes and monsters found a perfect combination in this issue. Sometimes I wish we could relive the excitement of our youth, and if that were the case, the day I bought and read this issue would probably be near the top of my list of great childhood moments. The cover price of Giant-Size Super-Heroes Featuring Spider-Man #1 is 35 cents, while the current value is $90.

Cool comics in my collection #341: JLA #1, January 1997.

The two most important eras in my personal comic book history are the Seventies, when I first discovered comics, and the Nineties, when I really fell in love with them all over again. Being that I was a fan of Super Friends as a kid, and had started reading Justice League comics again, I was really excited for this relaunch that was simply titled JLA. It featured a great lineup of characters (Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern) and was written by Grant Morrison, so it had a lot going for it and is definitely one of the Cool Comics in My Collection. And believe me, the dialog and story are much better than the Super Friends! The cover price of JLA #1 is $1.95, while the current value is $15.

Cool comics in my collection #342: Firestorm, The Nuclear Man #4, September 1978.

So are there any other Firestorm fans out there? I would think that having the character on TV over the last couple of years (Thanks, CW!) would have made him a little more popular, whatever variation you prefer him as. I remember seeing him on later Super Friends, but I didn’t watch it much by that time, and while I didn’t originally buy this short-lived series in the Seventies, I did start with issue number one of the second series in the early Eighties. But I didn’t collect for more than a year at that point, so when I started reading comics again in the Nineties, one of my goals was to find all the back issues of series one and two, and I achieved that goal pretty easily, as back issues of Firestorm were really inexpensive back then. For some reason I really enjoyed the adventures of these two individuals who came together to form this unusual hero, and maybe you appreciate him, too. The cover price of Firestorm, The Nuclear Man #4 is 35 cents, while the current value is $10.

Cool comics in my collection #343 (One That Got Away): Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, January 1976.

How many of you out there remember the big Treasury-sized comic books they used to put out? I had a nice pile of them, but they weren’t the easiest to store, so I sold them all. And this historic issue was one of them. Earlier in this post I talked about how cool it was that two of my favorite childhood heroes got together in a crossover (Spider-Man and Batman), but this actually happened in 1976! It seemed both impossible and improbable at the time, but Marvel and DC pulled it off. The Man of Steel and The Amazing Spider-Man came at us larger than Life…or at least as big as Life magazine, that is, which always took up a lot of space on newsstands. At any rate, what kid didn’t want this comic back in those days? But it was considered pretty expensive at $2, so I’m sure many passed it up, and later regretted it. The cover price of Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man is $2, while the current value is $85.