Sunday, April 1, 2001

The Mount - Lost Comic Treasures!

All righty everyone. Unca Stars isn't just going to entertain and inform you youguns about some obscure bit of comics trivia this month. He's also going to give you a chance to earn big money. Well, maybe not money. Unca Stars has that student loan to worry about. But you might have a chance to win anything of your choosing from his Magical Box of Comics for Sale. Sound good so far, kiddies? Then read on!

Perhaps not all of you out there know about the infamous "lost comics" of DC Comics. For those of you who don't, let me bring you up to speed. A lost comic is a comic that, for one reason or another, was never meant to be released to the public. Lost comics tend to be very rare occurrences, since editors usually catch any problems before an issue is sent to print. In most cases, these lost comics are shredded... hence the name of lost comics. But sometimes... some of these lost comics get loose. And they can prove quite valuable.

Running down the list of the more famous lost comics, I realize that I cannot continue without mentioning the most famous of the lost comics; Elseworlds 80 Page Giant and the original version of League of Extraordinary Gentleman #5. The Elseworlds 80 Page Giant was pulled at the last minute, due to a classic Superbaby story showing little Clark Kent getting into all kinds of trouble... including one scene where he somehow gets inside a running microwave oven. DC, apparently fearing the PR scandals and potential for lawsuits, had all the issues of the comics shredded, except for a few issues that were delivered to the UK. Similarly, LOEG #5 was pulled because of an authentic period advertisement placed in the book. LOEG long made a habit of having real Victorian-era ads in their book in order to create the illusion of the book being a classic serial novel. The problem with LOEG #5 was that one of their more prominent ads was for a feminine hygiene product manufactured by the "Marvel" company. Again, worried over the idea that a certain competitor might be offended, DC shredded almost all of the original issues. And again, a few managed to get out. Now you all might ask... what does this have to do with your free comics?

I'm trying to track down some of these lost comics. Issues that while not as famous as the Elseworlds or LOEG #5 are still of interest to me as a fan and collector.

Lucky you! You all get to help me look. Here's how it works. In the following paragraphs, I'm going to describe the lost comics I'm looking for. If you can find a sign of where I can get that comic or if you have that issue yourself and are interested in trading it, write me and give me the relevant information, including websites and or/prices. If you tell me where I can get the comic, and I get it from there, you get a number of comics equal in value to whatever I pay for the lost comic. You'll get the list of what I have as soon as I confirm a sale. Or, if you have one of the following, I can just trade you straight value; my comics for yours... whatever I have that you want is yours.

First, there is the Wonder Woman Hentai special; Wonder Woman Against the Octoprobes of Gamsaro. Released in Japan only, this comic detailed Wonder Woman's fighting against a gruesome race of alien invaders, the eight-tentacled Octoprobes. It was shredded by DC due to the rather graphic artwork of famed Japanese comic artist Hujiro Teep Whing. It is valued at being worth 70 dollars in mint condition.

One of the most infamous of lost comics is the extremely rare Watchmen #13. It's existence is denied to this very day by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and DC Comics itself. Regardless, it is out there somewhere... and it completes the story that was cut off with what supposed to be an open ending to the whole story. It's all there... did Rorschach's journal get printed? Did it expose Ozymandias' plans to the world? Did it have any effect? At all? All is answered in this lost comic, worth $750 in mint condition.

Originally printed to keep Mark Waid from signing an exclusive contract with CrossGen Comics and leaving DC, this next comic was printed when DC offered Waid a chance to do a revitalization of any classic character he wanted to. Not surprisingly, the master of comics trivia chose a popular but obscure and often ignored hero for this rare privilege. Sadly, the marketing department quickly realized that the market for The New Adventures of Silent Majority was very small. In fact, they pinpointed it being made up of 17 people, one of those being Mark Waid and the other sixteen being die hard fans of The Force of July and/or Fanzing writers. Still, some copies were printed and are now worth 240 dollars to the right collector.

Lastly, there is a copy of the original print to Nightwing #47. Written during a week-long period, shortly after a camping trip where Chuck Dixon was accidentally struck in the head with a canoe paddle, this issue differs dramatically from the eventually published version. So illusive is this comic, in fact, that nobody is quite sure what is different about it. The rumors persist though.

Some say that Dick Grayson, tired of the corruption of the Bludhaven PD and his discovery that his newly adopted sidekick Tad is a murderer, gives up his career as a vigilante. Some say he outs himself to Bruce and Barbara. Others say that he moves to New York to begin a new life as a dancer on Broadway. On an interesting note, it is also rumored that about this time, Dixon also submitted a proposal to DC to bring back More Romance Comics.

Further, it is rumored that several members of the Dixonverse discussion boards got wind of this, traveled to Dixon's home and set about a brief period of therapy involving repeated watchings of True Grit with John Wayne, a strict diet of raw steak and schnapps and repeated blows to the head with a croquet mallet. Regardless, a week later a new Nightwing #47 script was submitted after a few of the mystery issue were already printed. This comic, which Dixon has no memory of writing, is valued at $450.