The John Carter stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan) originally appeared in pulp fiction form in 1912. Later collected into novels they all featured Carter, a veteran solider from Virginia, who was originally transported to Mars via an instance of astral projection. For many sci-fi fans of my generation, however, the first introduction to John Carter was not the pulp stories but the Bronze Age Marvel comic.
Today John Carter still remains more or less a mainstay in the pop culture world of the sci-fi/sword and fantasy genre, unfortunately a big budget 2012 Disney movie, starring Taylor Kitsch as Carter, was a box-office bomb losing Disney millions of dollars.
I actually enjoyed the movie and thought it wasn’t all that bad. Judging from audience reaction scores of 60% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.com, moreover, I wasn’t alone. However, for whatever reasons, it didn’t catch on with either the majority of movie goers or the critics and this, of course, had a direct effect on the John Carter comics.
While a successful film might very well have given comics featuring John Carter a bigger boost in value, the reality is that the negative effects seem to have been distributed mainly to all except the Marvel version of the character.
You see, like Tarzan, Burrough’s more famous creation; the comic book treatment of the Savage Swordsman of Barsoom was handled by many different comic book publishers. Marvel Comics was not the first to publish his adventures in comic book format. Originally John Carter appeared in comics all the way back in the Golden Age.
The Funnies #30 (April 1939) – First John Carter in Comics
The Funnies #30 is the first time Carter appears in comics. A 6.0 of this book sold in 2012 for $1,135.25. A high price, to be sure, but not out of reach. That was also the highest graded sale listed on GoCollect.com. This comic is so scarce that not enough copies exist to make a chart for displaying CGC census stats. A 3.0 sold in 2012 for $657.25. The most recent sale of a certified 5.0 was for $2000.00 on eBay and that was on Oct 23, 2017.
Issue #35, pictured at the top of this blog post, features Carter’s first comic book cover appearance. That issue nonetheless sells for slightly less than issue #30. An 8.5 file copy sold for a mere $567.63 on May 03, 2007.
Four Color (Dell) #375 - First Silver Age John Cater
The first Silver Age appearance of the character can be found in the Dell Four Color series with art by Jesse Marsh. There are only 27 of these on the CGC census and an eBay search reveals that prices range from far below Overstreet values to far above guide prices in high grade certified form (all are ‘Buy it Now’ options). The data from GoCollect.com paints the picture of a scarce but potentially valuable comic. For example, in June of 2007 a certified 9.0 graded copy of Dell Four Color #375 sold for $478.00. Ten Years later, this comic was listed in Overstreet in 9.0 for $467.00, but sales data reflect a general trend of lowering of prices on both mid and low grades with returns of negative -52.4% on 5.0 copies and negative -46.5% on 7.5 grades. The only exception, for some reason, was on certified 6.0 graded copies which after 5 sales since 2008 are up +20.3%. This comic was
reprinted by Gold Key in April of 1964 and in high grade can earn upwards of $300.00 or higher.
John Carter Warlord of Mars #1 (June 1977) – Marvel’s Adaptation of John Cater
Marvel put a whole host of burgeoning young talent on this book. This included a young Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont and Bill Mantlo (on scripts), and Dave Cockrum, Walt Simonson and Frank Miller's first Marvel artwork, along with contributions from established heavyweights such as Gil Kane and Carmen Infantino also providing art duty. How strong is the monetary resale value for Bronze Age comics? If those comics were originally published by Marvel then the honest answer at this point has to be: very strong. As a case in point, take this completely middle-of-the-road comic that has few die-hard fans today and flopped as a movie.
Marvel’s John Carter comic has mostly positive returns. With 459 copies on the CGC census, based on sales, this comic has a FMV, in 9.8 certified grade, of $120.00. While sales are trending slightly downward on 9.8's, almost all other grades show positive returns. Best returns have actually been on 8.0 certified grades showing a positive + 136.1% return on investment, however only after a total of three sales since 2017. Be advised however that this comic has a 35 cent variant cover. The price variant version is very much worth seeking out; a 9.6 sold for $512.00 in December of 2017.
