X-Men Vol. 2 #205, Marvel Comics, January 2008.
I’ve been talking to some young, in the know fans at the shop and they are telling me that there is some building spec around the X-Men character Hope Summers. These conversations intrigued me – the guys made passionate arguments and asked me to consider what they had to say when I was picking this week’s Spotlight. Well this week I’m choosing X-Men Vol. 2 #205 as my Undervalued Spotlight.
X-Men Vol. 2 #205 features the 1st appearance of Hope Summers. Hope Summers was the 1st Mutant born after the Decimation Event, she’s a massively powerful character who possesses the Phoenix Force. Hope’s powers have not fully been flushed out but all indications are that she is a major force, there’s a quote somewhere online that calls her the Mutant Messiah and some say even the harbinger of death for mankind.
The spec seems to revolve around the delayed X-Men: Dark Phoenix movie due next year and the subsequent moving of all the X-Men characters over to the Marvel/Disney movie machine. There was even spec about a young Hope Summers appearing in Deadpool 2.
All this speculation is great, it creates buzz and interest in the character.
Personally I think Hope Summers has unlimited potential, Marvel has set her up to become a major character. Movie hype aside Hope Summers is a good bet. I stole the following from the Marvel website;
“I’m assuming you saw what she did? How her powers work? Anything we can do – anything any of us can do – she’s already there. It’s like – someone made a voodoo dool for the whole mutant race. That’s what Hope is. She’s all of us.” – Prodigy
X-Men #205’s value has been climbing on eBay, raw copies were getting less than $10 a few months ago but are now sometimes over $20. I’m pretty sure this book can still be found in bargain bins at local comic book shops and at cons – I think I sold one for $2.00 as part of a Messiah Complex Value Pack a week or two ago.
I don’t think it would hurt anyone to hunt down a bunch of these and put them in their stash.
The 47th Overstreet price break for this book is $3 in the 9.2 grade split.
Reasons to buy this comic book as an investment:
- First appearance Hope Summers
One of my favorite things to do is go watch eBay after an undervalued spotlight post. It’s amazing how much these can drive books sometimes. Today is no exception.
I enjoyed the Messiah Complex storyline, but if this book catches fire will be more than happy to part with it so I can plug more cash into GA/SA stuff I’m looking for.
Thanks for chiming in Tim – flipping MA into some quality GA is always a good thing
Interesting. It’ll be 2 years since the launch of Rebirth come June and the two leads appear to be Flash and Wonder Woman, but only with raw specimens, trading between $10-15 bucks approximately. With the New 52’s prior, Batman was way ahead within a similar time frame. I guess this caused people to load up on Rebirth Batman #1’s so there’s plenty to go around, resulting in no appreciation. The Flash and Wonder Woman were also the fan favourites at the movies so this may be a factor as well.
As for graded books, these are basically trading at cost so I would tread carefully here. I managed to sell my copy of Wonder Woman early on it was difficult to squeeze out a profit and I’m still stuck with my copy of Batman. But if you’re a collector and just want to have a 9.8 copy for your collection, it may be easier to simply buy one graded as opposed to dealing with the submission process.
Side note: Can you believe that the last sale of a Hulk#181, 9.8 was almost $28k USD? This is the highest paid for this book, in this grade. Make of it what you will.