When I was a kid the thought of joining the French Foreign Legion and leaving all my problems for an elite organization appealed to me. One comic that captures the nuance and fun of the Foreign Legion is the comic book series Alien Legion. In a nutshell, it is the French Foreign Legion in space; hence Alien Legion. Now before we get into the analysis this is probably the biggest long shot of my speculation efforts. This movie probably won't appear anytime soon. But with all the media companies fighting for online supremacy, it is only a matter of time before Alien Legion has its day among the stars. Can this Alien Legion #1 bring us backpacks full of "quatloo?" (Source: TOS Star Trek a "monetary unit on the planet of Triskelion which was used to bet on Thralls")

 

 

 

 

Alien Legion #1

The Alien Legion was created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz (script) and the talented art of Frank Cirocco (pencils and inks). It was published by Epic (Marvel) in 1984 and follows the military unit of Force Nomad with fantastically original characters like Sarigar the serpent leader, or better yet, Jugger Grimrod the deadly assassin hiding in the Legion as a grunt. The characters are fleshed out, the military aspect detailed, and the hopeless situations Force Nomad gets stuck in make for a great read. If ever there was going to be another space genre created, this will probably be it. Currently, sure this is a long shot but it is such a cheap buy-in, why not?

 

 

 

Long-Term

  • Grade 9.8 has had the following sales:
    • 2018 = $59
    • 2017 = $57
    • 2016 = $75
    • 2015 = $42

Basically, there is zero salient historical data on this comic. The best we can do is buy and hold. Now, this is my longest-term purchase. I don't expect it to pay off for at least 5-8 years. But the good news, most of these are in $1 boxes or being sold in back issue bins for about $3. So, you spend say $30 over the next year and pick up every number one you can in Alien Legion #1 and sock away ten copies for a rainy day. This is the kind of long-term planning and purchasing that puts people way ahead in the comic book speculation business.

Conclusion:

Once, at a local con, one young retailer summed up speculation pretty well, "Norm, you gotta buy before it is even on the radar" (paraphrase). He was right, you buy well in advance, something I have been doing for the last decade. You can make speculation moves right up until the movie or TV show drops, but the big money is made years ahead of time. The simple reason this works is you can pick the books up cheap before there is any media hype. For instance, the average price for Alien Legion #1 in 9.8 graded CGC book is around $60.

Another aspect of collecting, investing and ultimately speculating in comic books, is that it also makes a great art purchase as well. Without media hype, most of the original art, splash pages and so on; is so cheap that you can buy that too. The whole concept is like buying books during the 90s after the entire market had collapsed. No one wants them, the price is as low as it can go. Further, the entire market has abandoned this particular comic book for Venom and other hot books; in essence, it is a long shot. Yep, it is time to suit up; join Force Speculator and sandbag the heck out of Alien Legion #1.

 

Note to readers: What other books are off the radar that you might be hunting? Please post your picks in the comments section and it might end up in this blog, with of course a shout-out to you.

 

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