New Mutants

The New Mutants were a brilliant creation by Chris Claremont. The premise is teenagers with the powers of the X-Men, and it played pretty well back in the 1980's. These teenage mutants first appeared in their own titles series in New Mutants #1 (1983). Bob McLeod and Chris Claremont worked on this comic together and provided an interesting pastiche of characters. This book came out in March 1983, and to give some historical perspective; this was when IBM first released PC DOS version 2.0, Scott Hamilton (USA) won the Men's figure Skating Championship, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan first introduces Strategic Defense Initiative to the country a.k.a. Star Wars.

According to the website Comic Book Reviews, 20th Century Fox has decided to push forward the New Mutants movie from February 22, 2019, to August 2, 2019. According to the latest hype and rumor, they are bumping forward the movie to add a new character to the film with reshooting. Who is this character? I have no idea. This will probably stop the upward surge of pricing on New Mutants #1 for now. Perhaps that is a good thing and allows those of us without a near mint copy to pick one up; you speculators pick up three!

The Investment return in New Mutants #1 has been profitable over the last six years. Currently, mint to near mint (9.8) has sold for an average of $87.10 with a 28.7% ROI. Even the power of Sunspot, this teams brick, couldn't lift that load any higher. For the speculative short term purchase, the numbers look even better. The last three months of hype have given rise to New Mutants #1 returning an astonishing 60% ROI in a very fine grade (8.0) (GoCollect). Whew! Who knew a book that five years ago you couldn't give away was such a good investment.

Note to you speculators: This book should be purchased in as many grades as possible and held until the hype is at a fever pitch. This comic book concept is already popular and proven itself in a 100 comic book issues. These New Mutants might be a little old school, but the green they put in your pocket is not. Do a Cannonball blast to your nearest comic shop and pick up as many copies as you can carry, and revel in your inner Specu-Terminator.

X-Men and Phoenix

The Phoenix story is one of the best sagas to come out of the X-men franchise and maybe all of Marvel. It showcases a battle between the darkness and the light within one personality. Kind of like Luke battling to stay a Jedi and not turn to the Darkside. Jean Grey is a founding X-Men and a mutant with such vast power she could destroy an entire solar system. Better watch out Thanos.  The X-men #101 (1976) is the first appearance of Phoenix and her origin story. The pencils were by Dave Cockrum with a brilliant script and creation by Chris Claremont.

The upcoming movie X-Men: Dark Phoenix is directed and written by Simon Kinberg, and based on the classic X-Men story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne" (Source: CBR). The movie release date has a change of plans for Dark Phoenix as well. It has been pushed forward four months to Feb 14, 2019. No idea on why this is. Warning: This story has been told on multiple occasions with Phoenix and the X-Men. It was a failure every single time. I have a terrible feeling this movie still has that same underachieving curse. Nonetheless, a catalyst exists for this comic.

The near mint to mint (9.8) for this comic book is currently averaging $1,807 with a 70.7% ROI. Should you own a copy, just sit tight. Whether the movie works or not this book is going up from here, hang tough. Note to speculators: you might be able to play around with the readable copies for $120 or so. Perhaps look for some damaged copies in the (2.0 to 3.0 range) and upsell them once the movie hype hits. Happy hunting.