A long time ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...STAR WARS!! There are few franchises more beloved than this legendary George Lucas creation. To celebrate it, we are going to look at some of the greatest and most interesting Star Wars comics out there. Today's focus: SUPER RARE COMICS!
Note: Would like to thank DrunkWooky for their phenomenal research on rare Star Wars comics.
Galaxy's Edge #1 Imagineer Variant
To celebrate the opening of Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland, Marvel published a series of tie-in comics about the fictional world of the park, the Black Spire Outpost. For those Disney employees who helped to create Galaxy's Edge, a rare variant was created. Though there is some debate around how many actually exist, there is no question that the book is hard to find.
Graded Analysis: As of this writing, 35 copies of this variant exist in the census. One of them is a signature series comic graded at 9.0, while the remaining 34 are Universal. Of those 34, the plurality of both sales (4) and census count (9) came from comics graded at 9.8. 9.8s have reached as high as $6,900, but most recently seem to have sold for much less. Only three grades have sold more than 1 copy, but in each case, final price values generally trended upward over time.
Star Wars #1 35 Cent Variant
Back in 1977, Marvel was experimenting with a 5-cent increase to the cover price of its comics. Copies were only distributed to a few cities (by some estimates, as few as 4) to see how the price increase might affect sales. Newsstand distribution, which was notorious for damaging books to various degrees, was still the common distribution method at the time. Consequently, there are extremely few copies that have survived to this day.
By some estimates, fewer than 500 copies have survived to this day. Now, all of that is a recipe to make any book rare and/or valuable. But when the book in question is Star Wars #1, the very first comic appearance of some of the most iconic characters in film and science fiction history, the desirability goes through the roof.
Graded Analysis: As of this writing, there are 308 copies of this book in the CGC census. Of that 308, 276 are Universal, 12 are Signature Series, 19 are Restored, and 1 is the rarely seen category of Conserved. Concerning the Universal grade books, no comic has ever received a 9.8 and only two have received a 9.6.
In several grades, particularly 4.5, 5.0, and 9.4, the growth has been phenomenal. Others, meanwhile, such as 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0, are more of a mixed bag. I bring this up not to dissuade people from investing, but rather to emphasize that this book's rarity does not make it a guarantee.
Star Wars: The High Republic Promotional Gallery #1
The High Republic represents Star Wars' first true move away from the Skywalker era since Disney bought Lucasfilm. If the characters and stories are big hits with fans, rarer High Republic books could become huge keys. With that in mind, I wanted to feature a rare High Republic book for this article and ultimately settled on this one.
Before the High Republic era was officially unveiled, high-quality promotional boxes were sent to a small group of creators, media figures, and retailers. Included in that box was this preview edition of High Republic #1 from Marvel Comics. As the front cover clearly indicates, Star Wars: The High Republic Promotional Gallery #1 predates High Republic #1 and thus has an incredible collectability factor.
Graded Analysis: There are only four copies of this book in the CGC Census. 2 of them came in at 9.8, 1 at 7.5, and finally 1 at 7.0. The only recorded sale was for the 7.5, which had a final price of $999. Not bad at all.
*Any perceived investment advice is that of the freelance blogger and does not represent advice on behalf of GoCollect.