Welcome to Cool Comics in My Collection Episode 74, where we take a nostalgic look at comic books I currently own, and in some sad cases, ones that I let get away.

For each of the comic books I include in this blog, 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), with a maximum of seven issues. 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 74…

Cool comics in my collection #397: The Amazing Spider-Man #310, December 1988.

It’s always interesting to read comics from several decades ago, because characters and situations tend to change, regardless of the perception that they are just soap operas featuring a villain of the month. Okay, sometimes this is true…but there are differences from when I left Peter Parker in 1982 to this comic in 1988, in which he’s now married to Mary Jane, not to mention that during this late Eighties period, Todd McFarlane took over the art duties before Spawn became a thing (not The Thing; you know, the orange rocky guy). You really notice a difference in the visuals from everything that came before McFarlane started drawing Spider-Man, allowing your imagination to see some of those fights and web-swinging panels as if they were really happening. Now back to the topic of changes. I don’t read the current Spider-Man titles, but I’m getting a taste for them in some of my digital reading, and Peter Parker’s situation is so very different from when I was a kid. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If our heroes never changed, we’d tire of them. Sometimes we do yearn for more simpler times, which is the beauty of back issues. The cover price of The Amazing Spider-Man #310 is $1, while the current value is $16.

Cool comics in my collection #398: Superboy #202, June 1974.

As longtime readers know, I absolutely love DC’s “100 PAGES FOR ONLY 60¢” issues that came out in the mid-Seventies, my favorite time for comic books. Since that’s when I started collecting and reading, this period holds a special place in my heart. The drugstore chain where my father worked as a pharmacist usually carried these, and he’d use a pen on the cover to mark his employee discount when I came to the store asking him to buy me another one. Obviously, the writing on the covers devalues the comics, but looking back, I don’t care. I picked up this copy of Superboy at Kenmore Komics a few months back, and I must admit that I miss my dad’s writing across the top, changing the price. My relationship with my father includes Superman fandom, and I think he would have enjoyed this thick issue of Superboy that features reprints from the Sixties. I can’t read any comic related to the Man of Steel without recalling fond memories of my dad. And that’s part of the reason why I’m still reading comics into my fifties. The cover price of Superboy #202 is 60 cents, while the current value is $60.

Recently Read Digital Comics

Since I’ve started reading a fair amount of digital comics over the last couple months, I’ve finally been exposed to comics from 2004 to the present. And like everything else in life, change happens. The experience of reading Ultimate Enemy #1 was not unlike flipping through the pages of an issue of What If?, because this reimagining of the Marvel Universe…within the Ultimate line…felt completely foreign to me. I bought and read all the Ultimate comics when they first came out, but stopped in mid-2003. Ultimate Fantastic Four started in 2004, so maybe if I’d read that comic, this wouldn’t have seemed so different to me. But all I had to compare it to was the good old regular Fantastic Four, and this wasn’t it. The story was interesting, and maybe the series would be worth reading, considering there are just four issues. Has anyone else read all four issues of this series? This one was free in the Marvel Comics App.

Captain America and the Falcon were a big part of my childhood. I loved those comics, and I remember when Steve quite being the symbol of America, instead becoming the hero named Nomad. And now it seems that Steve Rogers has lost his powers and Sam Wilson, the Falcon, has taken over the mantle of Captain America. This comic is from October 2015, and I really don’t know what the current status is with the title (except now I do, as I see that it’s still ongoing). This digital issue was offered to me as part of a deal in which I could download a few free comics, and I either got it at a movie theater or in a Blu-Ray package. Personally, I like the team-up of the two heroes together, but I’m still living in the Seventies. If you’ve been reading this title and think I should continue the series, feel free to voice it in the comments box below. Once I catch up with all my free comics and a few collections I’ve bought, I may join Marvel Unlimited (a great deal at less than $6 a month!) and I could add it to my reading list.