Welcome to Cool Comics in My Collection Episode 49, where we take a nostalgic look at six cool comic books I currently own, and one that I let get away.

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 49…

Cool comics in my collection #316: House of Secrets #112, October 1973.

This week I’m delivering on my promise from Episode 48, that this would be an all DC Comic week. Although this isn’t a typical list that most people would probably place here, but as always, I have my reasons. In the Seventies, most of my comic book money went towards Marvel comics, but when I had the chance to shop at The Paradox Bookstore, a little used shop in Wheeling, West Virginia, I had fun buying horror DC comics. I was a big fan of scary movies (I watched Bill “Chilly Billy” Cardille out of Pittsburgh on weekend nights! Sadly, Bill passed away on July 21 of this year), so it seemed natural that I’d get some scary comics when they were just a dime apiece in used condition (oddly, I didn’t buy the Marvel monster comics). The cover price of House of Secrets #112 is 20 cents, while the current value is $15.

Cool comics in my collection #317: Weird Mystery Tales #24, November 1975.

This is the only issue of Weird Mystery Tales I currently own, which I picked up at the same little used bookstore mentioned above. Besides the monster movies I watched on the weekends, the Seventies had other fun shows like The Night Stalker, reruns of Night Gallery, and The Sixth Sense (not the movie, but the 1972 TV show with Gary Collins – does anyone remember this one?). Most of the kids in my neighborhood loved these scary shows and movies, and our love of things that made our hair stand on end naturally extended into monster magazines and comic books. I just wish I’d bought more of these when I was younger. Live and learn. The cover price of Weird Mystery Tales #24 is 25 cents, while the current value is $15.

Cool comics in my collection #318: Strange Adventures #199, April 1967.

Strange Adventures #199 came out in 1967, so there is no way I would have bought this one off the newsstand. I would have been four years old at the time, and scared of my own shadow! Even when I watched the monster movies with host Chilly Billy in the Seventies, I was still often scared. Yet I felt an attraction to horror. Many people actually like that frightened feeling, and I was no exception. Lucky for me that this issue was just waiting for me at the Paradox Bookstore in Wheeling, West Virginia, as a used comic for only 10 cents. I bought all six issues of Strange Adventures that were in the store that day (60 cents plus tax, thanks mom!) and felt like I’d hit the jackpot. The cover price of Strange Adventures #199 is 12 cents, while the current value is $40.

Cool comics in my collection #319: Action Comics #437, July 1974.

After some digging around in my comic book boxes last week, I found another 100-page giant that I hadn’t yet covered here at Cool Comics in My Collection. These special issues were always fun to pick up, especially since I didn’t read as much DC in those days. I can picture myself sitting at the kitchen table in the evening, everyone else watching something on TV, while I munched away on some overly sweet breakfast cereal, reading the latest exploits of the Man of Steel! I bought this issue at Super-X Drugs in my hometown of Martins Ferry, Ohio, where my father was a pharmacist. Sometimes it took a little convincing for him to buy me the comics, but my father was a Superman fan clear back at Action Comics #1. The cover price of Action Comics #437 is 60 cents, while the current value is $60.

Cool comics in my collection #320: The Dark Knight Strikes Again #1, December 2001.

I’m not a big Batman fan. When I was a kid, the Batman TV show from 1966 was my introduction to superheroes, and I loved that show. Actually, as a kid in the late Sixties, I absolutely loved all things Batman. But as the years rolled on and I was introduced to other heroes, Batman lost his luster. When I started collecting comics again in the Nineties, I jumped on board the Batman train just in time for Knightfall and Knightquest. I enjoyed those, along with the new Robin, Tim Drake. I bought a hardcover collection of the complete Frank Miller Batman stories, which all four issues of The Dark Knight Returns, so when this sequel came out, I bought each issue at Kenmore Komics in Akron, Ohio. For those who may not be familiar with the story, Batman is 55 years old and returns to fighting crime. Since I’m on the cusp of 54, it doesn’t seem that old to me! The cover price of The Dark Knight Strikes Again #1 is $7.95, while the current value is $8.

Cool comics in my collection #321: Zero Hour #4, September 1994.

Zero Hour: Crisis in Time is another follow-up in this episode. This series, which starts at number 4 and goes down to number 0, has ties with Crisis on Infinite Earths. I always enjoy mini-series, especially when lots of characters are involved and we get to see some cool interactions. Unfortunately, Hal Jordan, the greatest Green Lantern, has gone insane. This came out in the second year of my third phase of comic collecting, so I really had fun seeing so many DC heroes and villains, some familiar, some new to me. And it crossed over into almost every monthly comic that DC was putting out at the time. In some ways I like this, but in others, it gets pretty expensive and too hard for kids to collect all of them. The cover price of Zero Hour #4 is $1.50, while the current value is $4.

Cool comics in my collection #322 (One that got away): Catwoman #1, August 1993.

Since I started reading Batman once more in the Nineties, I got hooked on all his titles, along with Robin, and even several issues of Catwoman, but I didn’t’ start with the first issue, as I picked this one up for 50 cents in a back issue box at a comic book store in Atlanta, Georgia. Catwoman has always been a popular Batman villain, and in an older TV series, Birds of Prey, one of the heroes is the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. Of course I remember Catwoman from the old Sixties Batman TV show, having been played by both Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt. Alas, I sold most of my Batman comics, and Catwoman right along with him, at a garage a few years back. The cover price of Catwoman #1 is $1.95, while the current value is $5.

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