Scenes from an Amatuer Comic Collector's Life (4)--Trading Up

Several months ago I bought 20 old Red Circle comics from ebay because one had art by Jack Kirby. It had a reprint of a series Kirby did called The Fighting American. The other 19 didn't interest me. Strictly second-rate heroes like THUNDER Agents and the Mighty Crusaders from the 1980s without the camp value of the Silver Age books of the same title. I had been meaning to trade the 19 for the longest time. Roger at Time Machine said I should hold onto them because you never knew, they might be worth something someday. But why not just trade them for something I really wanted?

Work has been stressful lately, so I figured I deserved some new comics. I lugged in the Red Circles to Time Machine at lunch. For 19, I netted five Silver Age ones I really wanted--three in lousy shape and two much better--and bought two extras. Roger dumped the Red Circles in his 99 cent bin. I also had a Jetsons which I didn't care about and that was worth $2. My new acquisitions are four Thors from the Silver Age with art work by Kirby and one Flash from the same period featuring the wedding of Barry Allen, Flash's secret identity to Iris West. On their wedding day, the evil Professor Zoom manages to switch places with Flash so that the latter is trapped in a prison cell in the future. The villain is about to marry the unwitting Iris--who doesn't even know her real fiance is a superhero--when Flash runs into the church and kidnaps what appears to be the bridegroom. It all works out in the end, but Barry Allen explains to Iris "It was all a mistake"--that's it, his whole rationale--and she buys it! And this woman is a reporter? Lois Lane would have put all over that story. Barry does tell Iris his big secret several issues later.

Thor is another series I am collecting since it is one of the few Kirby titles I haven't snapped up. Later I went to Midtown Comics. For some reason, they have only Bronze and Copper back issues in their display bins. They save the good stuff for online. But on this occassion I found six or seven Kirby Thors in reasonable condition for $5 each. I bought one. Then a few days later I went back and they were all gone. How frustrating.