Welcome back to our blog series about the Fantastic Four CPI! This time, we’re going to take a look at the Fantastic Four Annuals that are included in the index. We’ll also see how the CPI has changed in the past couple weeks and which issues were driving the changes.
Ah, Those Square-Bound Annuals
Once upon a time, Marvel’s annuals were a huge deal. They often contained big stories in issues with larger page counts. Sure, they included some reprints, but there was something special about the annuals. However, these issues often take a back seat to issues in the regular series where collectors are concerned. Fortunately for Fantastic Four collectors, the Silver Age annuals were anything but routine and all six are included in the index. Let’s take a look at them.
The Big Sub-Mariner Issue
Fantastic Four Annual #1 featured a big donnybrook against none other than Golden Age anti-hero Sub-Mariner. Being the first annual in the series has always given it prominence in collectors’ minds with prices to match. While we’ve seen diminishing values since the boom, the curve is nowhere near as steep as we’ve seen in other books in the index. It peaked in November 2022 with an index value of 27.30. Since, it has dropped to 25.44, a loss of 6.8% across 22 grades. Most of the fall has occurred in the 9.0 to 3.0 grades, with both the top grades and the lowest grades retaining their value for the most part. It’s still up 151% since 2019, so its definitely been a worthwhile investment if you purchased prior to the boom.
The Origin of Doom - Again
I covered Fantastic Four Annual #2 in The Fantastic Four CPI: The Index of Doom, so I’ll let you catch up with it now. Don’t worry – I’ll wait. You’re back? Great! The one thing I’ll note in addition to what was said there is that we’re beginning to see an uptick in value. With Doom becoming more prominent in the comics and the MCU, don’t be surprised if this comic has reached its value floor and continues climbing upward once more.
The Big Wedding Issue
Perhaps the most underrated of all FF annuals is Fantastic Four Annual #3. This issue features pretty much every Marvel character in existence at the time and even brings back Patsy Walker and Hedy Wolfe for their first appearances in the Silver Age. All are in attendance for the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Because the book was often an afterthought for collectors, it never experienced the spikes during the boom that we saw with most other issues in the index. Instead, it’s been a nice steady climb from an index value of 2.23 to its current peak of 3.50. That’s a 57% increase in five years, and proof that it often pays to fish where others are not.
The Original Human Torch
Fantastic Four Annual #4, featuring the first appearance of Jim Hammond – the original Human Torch – in the Silver Age, has been on a similar journey to Fantastic Four Annual #3 with the exception that it’s seen a recent decrease in its index value. It has dropped ever-so-slightly from its peak of 3.11 set in June to its present index value of 3.02, a loss of just 3%. It’s still up 35% since October 2019.
Psycho-Man and Silver Surfer
Serving a dual purpose in the eyes of collectors, Fantastic Four Annual #5 contains the first appearance of FF foe Psycho-Man and the first Silver Surfer solo story. This is a book that took a mountainous journey to a 4.90 index value peak in May 2023, then to a currently steepening valley of 4.05, a loss of 17%. That’s more than twice the amount the Fantastic Four CPI has lost in aggregate since reaching its peak (down 7.5%), marking this annual as the worst performing investment of all six FF Silver Age annuals over the past year-and-a-half.
The Highest Valued Annual
No Fantastic Four Annual benefited more from the recent boom than Fantastic Four Annual #6. Featuring the first appearances of Franklin Richards – son of Reed and Sue – and Negative Zone nemesis Annihilus, this oft-ignored issue (and lagging far behind Fantastic Four Annual #1 and Fantastic Four Annual #2 in 2019) exploded in value beginning in June 2021 with the first-ever sale of a 9.8 graded copy for $26,400. A subsequent 9.8 sale for $33,600 in April 2022 pushed its index value even higher.
This in turn led to sharp increases in lower grades. The inevitable has since occurred and we’ve seen a drop in index value of 7.4%, just a hair less than the value we’ve seen in the index as a whole. While the top grades have held their value, grades between 9.2 and 3.0 were those most affected, with many grades dropping to values below those of 2019. While the bleeding appears to have stopped – as seen by a relatively stable index value over the past six months – it’s still a cautionary tale against purchasing mid-grade copies shortly after records have been set in the highest grades.
Recent Fantastic Four CPI Movement
There’s not much to report regarding movement in the Fantastic Four CPI as it lost just one point, or 0.2%, over the past couple of weeks. Issues near the top of the index that have experienced recent sharp downward trends include Fantastic Four #5, Fantastic Four #4, and Fantastic Four #52. On the bright side, Fantastic Four #10 leads a fairly large group of mid-valued Lee/Kirby issues that have seen some decent increases in value over the past month.
