Analyzing the Hottest Silver Age Comics of the last 30 days is a case study of both what lies behind us and speculation about what lies ahead. Normally, this list is populated with books driven by speculation from future MCU or DCEU projects. And while books like Silver Surfer #3 are doing well, this month’s list of biggest risers gets back to comic roots in a lot of ways. The most popular books this past month were the old faithful from the Silver Age: Spider-Man and the X-Men. But there's also a little Mephisto speculation thrown in for good measure. Investors found books that were undervalued in these titles and are jumping on them.

Here are the five highest risers among Silver Age books in the past month.

X-Men #9 (+66)

It personally pains me to see this book up so high this month for a very specific reason. If you'll allow me to share, my worst USPS experience in my long comic-collecting history happened with X-Men #9. I had a friend I met through Instagram who was selling his books for very good deals several years ago. A raw copy of this book was one of them.

I made the purchase, he sent the book, and we waited. And we waited. We both began to reach out to the post office after about two weeks of "pending" status and no book in sight. They looked and looked over the next several books, but it soon became clear they could not find the book. After about five months, we gave up and it became clear: USPS lost the book. I love this book for the historical X-Men versus Avengers battle, and it pains me to this day that I don't have a copy.

Likely because of the historic meeting of these two iconic teams (it's the first Avengers crossover into X-Men), this book is really holding value, even in a down market. The most recent copy of a CGC 6.5 (56th percentile) sold this month for $910. That's the same price it sold for in spring 2021, it sold for $945 in October 2021, and $888 six months ago. That's some remarkable stability for such a volatile market.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (+37)

With the hype of the Sinister Six in the MCU having come and gone, this book featuring their first appearance has really cooled down since December 2021. Take a CGC 3.5, for example. At the turn of the calendar to 2022, this book in that grade was routinely selling for around $2,000. In the Heritage auction that just ended on October 25th? The same book sold for $1,080. Maybe more than any other, this book has seen wild price spikes and valleys as investors don't really know where it will land.

Is there any more MCU juice to the book? Probably not, considering the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, but that doesn't change the fact that this is conservatively a top-20 classic Spider-Man book of all time. It is the first appearance of the best supervillain mash-up of the Silver Age and will remain a goal for collectors long after the MCU has come and gone.

Amazing Spider-Man #13 (+36)

Amazing Spider-Man #13 follows the trend of the ASM Annual #1 where there doesn't seem to be any news on the horizon for the book, but sales are certainly trending up. For this book, there were a strange 10 recorded sales between the dates of October 8th and October 18th. That's a high number in a short amount of time, so something must be up. We haven't seen a massive price drop as many grades have held mostly steady through 2022.

The best I can tell is that in September 2022, extended and deleted scenes for Spider-Man: No Way Home were released adding another 11 minutes to the film. Featured heavily in these scenes was Mysterio and the conspiracy theories surrounding his death following the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. If fans took this as a sign that Mysterio could once again find himself with an MCU role, they may be trying to get in at a much lower level than they would have paid in mid-2021.

X-Men #50 (+32)

Here's an interesting entry to the Hottest Silver Age comics list. X-Men #50 is not especially noteworthy for any of the classic reasons. There are no major first appearances; Polaris appears on the cover for the first time, but her first appearance comes earlier. It's not a reboot or a start of a major story arc. But it's perhaps the under-the-hood aspects of this book (plus the cheap price) that are driving its value.

You don't have to look too hard to find a list ranking the best X-Men covers before you find one that lists X-Men #50 in the top 10. This classic Jim Steranko cover expertly uses the various shades of one color to convey the conflict while spiking it with the yellow fire of Polaris. It's a classic. But there is another piece of X-Men history living on this cover. Compare X-Men #49 and X-Men #50 and you will quickly see the difference. This book is the first one to use the iconic 3-D block "X-MEN" font that is instantly recognizable almost 55 years later.

Lower grades of this book are not terribly expensive. A CGC 4.5 copy sold for less than $300 earlier this month.

Silver Surfer #3 (+31)

Here we are back again with our old friend and speculation nemesis, Mephisto. When WandaVision was on, we thought it was Mephisto time. Nope. When Loki was on, we thought it was Mephisto time. Nada. Now we are getting reports that Sasha Baron Cohen will play Mephisto in the upcoming IronHeart television series.  The result for his first appearance in comics in Silver Surfer #3 was a predictable one. It started spiking again, and is climbing up the charts with some of the more definitive news we have about the character to date.

We will never be able to escape Mephisto rumors for the rest of our lives. But for those are seeing this as a buying opportunity, the prices are ticking back up, but still affordable. The prices for a CGC 5.0 grade right now are about $400 on average across all sales in the GoCollect database. And while it's slowly rising, that is still about half of what someone paid for the same book in 2021. In this down comic book market, maybe it is finally time to grab some Mephisto.

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*Any perceived investment advice is that of the freelance blogger and does not represent advice on behalf of GoCollect.