Gene Colan was initially hired as a staff penciler for Timely (precursor to Marvel) which made much of his work uncredited, but his first cover was actually a Captain America Comic. His art graced almost every bit of genre for both DC and Marvel over his sixty plus years of production. He became well known as a horror comic artist and the Daredevil guy. Gene had co-created Blade, worked on Tomb of Dracula, Doctor Strange, Daredevil and of course eventually back around to Captain America in late 1960's. Gene Colan's 21 issue run of Captain America is mostly forgotten and still cheap to buy. Why? Probably because Jack Kirby created Captain America issues #100 -109 which have stolen the limelight. Colan's run includes the first appearance of The Falcon. Can these Gene Colan Cap's inflate in value as well as inspire?
Now, Gene Colan was one of those below the radar old-timer artists. Regardless, he has some great covers and plenty of period-specific art. He is best known for his Daredevil run which he started at issue #20 with more than 81 comics in Daredevil's first series. He is mainly known for three big titles: Tomb of Dracula, Dr. Strange, and Daredevil. He is seen as a Marvel artist but worked early on for DC Comics doing a lot of detective, war and cowboy type genre. Which makes sense because back in the 1950's these were the most popular comics not men in tights.
Gene's Caps have one major key the first appearance of The Falcon in Captain America #117. Currently, Gene Colan receives most of the credit along with Stan Lee for the creation of this character Falcon. Captain America #117 is an obvious pick to own. It has current catalyst of movies being produced, and Anthony Macke nails the character to a tee. As long as Macke is playing Falcon, you can count on more screen time for Cap's favorite sidekick. Recently, this issue in grade (9.0) sold for $485 in September, also a grade (5.0) sold for $135. These are good signs; however, the top return for this book has been around 63.5% in (9.6) or $2700 about the price of getting your picture with a presidential candidate. It is a good strong book, purchase now or wait until after the Avengers 4 movie about a year out.
But Colan had many significant Caps in the 1960's: Captain America #116 thru #137. One of his forgotten Cap's happens to be a minor key comic Captain America #119 in this issue Captain America fights the Red Skull, and the Cosmic Cube is destroyed. The best thing about this book is it does not destroy your bank account. Current values even for high end grades are very reasonable: grade (9.6) $220 FMV, grade (8.0) $65 FMV, and grade (6.0) only $20 FMV.
Across the spectrum of Colan's Caps, the price is very reasonable and has yet to catch up with some of the other books in the late Silver Age. The most recent returns have been outstanding for Captain America #119 with grade (7.0) returning a positive +35.1% and (8.0) far surpassing a grade lower with the return of whopping positive ROI of +96.6%. The kicker is this comic Captain America #119 can be found in most comic book shops that carry back issues. They are not even expensive, I would suggest buying the best of the bunch you can find. Then send the very fine to near mint copies to CGC. Think of it as a roll of the dice maybe you will get lucky with CGC. There is little downside for buying Gene Colan's Caps. Consider this purchase your patriotic duty to the ole' bankroll.
