It came today. Star Wars #59, aka the Imperial Biker Scout, arrived in the mail and I could not be more excited. Let's look at the Star Wars action figure variants.
Star Wars Action Figure Variants
One of the joys of collecting is completing a run of comics. Today, that joy is mine. With the arrival of Mr. Biker Scout, I now have an action figure variant (AFV) for each of the 75 issue Star Wars run that began back in the heady days of 2015. I was eight years old when I saw Star Wars (it was just Star Wars, not A New Hope and certainly not Episode IV) in the theater back in 1977. We had just moved to a new town and I was still getting my footing. I remember coming home from the movie and looking around my room for something that could serve as a lightsaber and maybe as a blaster in a pinch. Settling on a snorkel (I had an excellent imagination), I don't think the house went a day without the sound of "pew-pew," till I left for college. Don't look at me like that, I had younger brothers.
John Tyler Christopher is a Genius
I hadn't heard of Mr. Christopher (JTC) before I saw the Luke Skywalker action figure variant, a natural choice for the first issue. The genius of this was that a guy who doesn't look old enough to have been around when they first came out, managed to capture all of the magic of these wonderful action figures. I took guitar lessons at a music store in the mall in 1979. I don't remember much guitar, but I sure remember walking over to the toy store afterwards to look and see if any new Star Wars figures had come out. My folks still have all the well-worn toys in the basement.
The Star Wars Action Figure Collection
Now, Marvel certainly did their best to make putting together this run a challenge. Early on, many of the issues had high ratio order requirements, making it difficult for smaller shops to get their hands on these. Also, AFVs were released for all of the many side series that came out under the Star Wars title, like Princess Leia, two different Lando series, and so on. What's more, the first Darth Vader series, which gave us awesome new characters like Doctor Aphra, had AFVs not only for issue #1 but for the last six issues of the series as well. On top of that, there were JTC exclusives, available only through his website for some issues, though that resulted in a regular AFV and an exclusive one for that issue number in every case that I could find (usually designated AFV Cover A and Cover B). I admit I don't have all of these, but I do have Boba Fett. I thought it was pretty cool that just like the Boba Fett toy back in the day, you had to go to some additional work and expense to get the AFV comic too. You can find a list of these here on GoCollect. Even though I don't have every one of them, I consider my run complete because I have at least one AFV for every issue of the 75 issue series. Is that cheating? Let me know what you think.
Spec Books
If you are looking for blue chips, stick to the main characters: Luke, Han & Leia. I think an overlooked value here is Darth Vader (1st series) #1. It's an early entry in the Star Wars AFV field and is a #1 issue in his first, fantastic series. Obviously, the JTC exclusives are a fine way to go as they feature a low print run. My two favorites here are the big wraparound covers for Jabba the Hut and the Rancor issues 51 and 73. Note that in a nice touch, the regular AFV for issue 73 is the Rancor Keeper. For the long-shot specs out there, I like Doctor Aphra #1 (1st series). Again, #1 issue of her first series and it features the completely awesome Black Krrsantan, the Wookie assassin.
Final Thoughts
It really is one of the joys of our wonderful hobby to put together a finished run of comics. I highly recommend it. On a side note, if you've stayed on the ride to the end, thank you so much. I look forward to hearing from you.
GoCollect is the #1 comic book price guide for tracking sales data of all graded comic books in real-time. Get fair market values at your fingertips by updating your profile here.
