Books to Watch: Wonder Woman #37 (1949)

From a short list of comics I want to spotlight soon I chose this one because I received my first personal copy this week, purchased recently after looking for a copy online for a good long while.  This week I also purchased a run of 300 Wonder Woman comics so I was able to page through hard copies to verify some of the research below.

To some of you the focus on this book won't be a surprise since I have seen chatter about it online and know many others are looking for it.  Others might be completely unaware of what lies within but either way I hope this post will be of interest. It's been almost a year since Warner Brothers confirmed a Wonder Woman movie would be produced for a 2017 release.  This, and the general suspicion many had that a film was coming well before the announcement, has enhanced the profile of all Wonder Woman comics both keys and non-keys.  I wish I had the CGC 3.0 copy of All Star Comics #8 I contemplated purchasing for $7000 three years ago, but I would have missed out on other buying opportunities I'm sure.  And I digress.

The first appearance (Wonder Woman #6) of the antagonist most consider to be Wonder Woman's greatest (the Cheetah) has been expensive for some time, but value still can be found in key appearances of most of her other foes.  This post is about Circe, a character that has faced Wonder Woman a lot in post-Crisis continuity.  She first appeared way back in Wonder Woman #37 in 1949.

Circe of course is based on the Greek mythological figure who was a goddess of magic or in some depictions, a nymph or sorceress.  Comic book characters based on pre-existing legendary or cultural figures often don't have the same fan appeal as original creations, Thor being the obvious exception.  (Did you know that Thor was not the first superhero to be call himself Thor in comics, nor was he the first Thor to appear in Marvel comics, and that DC had its own version of Thor that pre-dated Journey Into Mystery #83?).  It is what Stan Lee and Marvel did with Thor that engendered his fan appreciation.  As far as villains go, Circe should have earned our respect by now in much the same way Loki has.

To wit, Circe appears at #1 in Newsarama's list of top Wonder Woman villains and #1 in What Culture's list of 5 Great Villains For a Wonder Woman movie.  She appears as #3 in this list, this list and this list. So she's the number 1 or a top 3 Wonder Woman villain depending on who you ask.

According to the Grand Comics Database WW 37 is the "first and only Golden Age appearance of Circe in the Wonder Woman series. Circe reappears toward the end of the pre-Crisis period starting at Wonder Woman (DC, 1942 series) #301, and becomes a major adversary post-Crisis." [Note: I don't find her in issue #301, so I either need to look harder or GCD made a mistake].

The DC Wikia can be more difficult to navigate than the Marvel Wikia due to its recognition of different versions of characters in difference periods of DC History.  Wonder Woman #37 hasn't been cataloged yet and no page for the Golden Age version of Circe exists.

I've put this history of the character together mostly thanks to Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics.

Modern & Post-Crisis history:

Wonder Woman #302 (Jan 1983, last two panels: one panel w/ face obscured, one panel with face shown.  1st appearance since 1969?.  Brief appearance only.)

Wonder Woman #305 (Jul 1983, two pages, disguised as the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol dome)

Wonder Woman #312 (Feb 1984, two panels)

Wonder Woman #313 (Mar 1984) 1st ever cover appearance.  1st full modern appearance?

Crisis On Infinite Earths #12 (Mar 1986)

Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #19 (August 1988).  1st post-Crisis appearance.  A nice bondage/skull cover.

In the New 52, she is around.

The more I read about this character, the more I realize she's an important DC villain. Her Silver Age crossovers to Superman family books and Superman's modern weakness to magic show she's more than just a Wonder Woman foil.

Silver Age History:

includes other versions of Circe not considered to be the main character.
 
[Action Comics #243 (Aug 1958), a "descendant of the original Circe" who "must have been from Krypton" according to Superman]

Showcase #21 (Jul/Aug 1959) 1st Silver Age appearance; 2nd overall appearance (?); also notably the 2nd appearance of Rip Hunter

[Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #13 (Nov 1959) - a stage magician named Circe who made Lois believe she had the face of a cat]

Action Comics #293 (Oct. 1962), where she is tied to the origin of Comet the Super-Horse

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #40 (Apr. 1963), where she foils the marriage of Lois Lane to Achilles in ancient Greece

Action Comics #311 (Apr. 1964) Comet travels back in time to visit her

Action Comics #323 (Apr. 1965) something about a poison antidote and a place called Feminax

Action Comics #331 (Dec. 1965) Supergirl tries to summon Circe to defeat Dr. Supernatural

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #92 (May 1969) Again, time-traveling Comet (last Silver Age appearance?)

Golden Age History

Wonder Woman #37 (1949, 1st appearance, only Golden Age appearance, depicted as blond-haired)

DC interiors can be tough to find online as they don't have a service like Marvel Unlimited.  I've scanned the full Circe story below from my own low-grade copy.  This is the third of 3 Wonder Woman stories in this issue and occupies the last 12 pages of the book.

So where do you get a copy?  I'm not aware of any available in the market right now, but I snagged mine recently for $155 (a GD/VG copy).  Wonder Woman #6 by comparison will run you almost $1000 in the same grade, although this weekend's Heritage auction could change that.

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Thanks for reading, and for reading comics!

 

Wonder Woman #160 (1966)

 

1st Silver Age appearance of the Cheetah and Dr. Psycho

I have a pick to share that I haven’t seen discussed in the past year or two on any of the various blogs or forums discussing such things.  Accompanying this pick is an analysis/comparison of the values of "1st Silver Age" appearances of characters vs. their "1st (Golden Age) appearance".

Wonder Woman #160 is the first Silver Age appearance of both the Cheetah and Dr. Psycho, the Number One and a Top 10 Wonder Woman villain.  We all know that Warner Bros has big plans for Wonder Woman, with a solo film (not 100% confirmed but likely) for 2017 and a big role in Batman v. Superman: DOJ and two Justice League films.

The first reason the book is a sleeper is simply because its significance is not broken out from the issues around it in the price guide (values of this and surrounding issues are the same) and from what I can tell this pretty much agrees with actual sales.

Secondly is the rise in value of Wonder Woman #6 (Cheetah’s first appearance) in the last few years.  There was a landmark sale of a 7.5 in 2012 for $5975, since then sales have not been as high as this but well above what they were before.

Here is an estimate of 8.0-grade fair market values using GPA data for WW 6 vs. 160, as compared to the 1st / 1st S.A. appearance of three Batman villains: Penguin, Riddler, and Scarecrow.  FMV for Wonder Woman #6 is far out of sync with guide (almost 4X guide) compared with the other characters (column G).

Should there be a correlation between the values of a characters first S.A. appearance with their first overall?  It stands to reason that there would be and this piece is predicated on this.  A character’s popularity transcends age and income brackets; the G.A. collector will desire the earlier book while the S.A. collector wants something in their price range and collecting category.

You can see from column O that the FMV of WW 160 is only 1.82% the FMV of WW 6 while for the other books it is around 5%.  (Scarecrow seems to be an outlier, which points to the undesirable cover of World’s Finest 3 and the title being outside the interest of the Batman/Detective collector.)  If the ratio were more around 5%, the FMV of WW 160 would be $356 in VF making it more than 50% undervalued.

Percent of WW 160 to #5 (1st Psycho) FMV is higher (7.14%) when compared with first Cheetah, but since Cheetah is the dominant character we can essentially throw out the Dr. Psycho data (as cool as the character is).  The fact WW 160 also contains the first Silver Age appearance of Dr. Psycho is an added bonus that should make the book that much more desirable.

When looking at first S.A. appearances, I also like to check how long the character spent out of the spotlight.  I feel the stagnation of Avengers #4 has to do with increased familiarity by collectors of 1950s-era books and the fact the Captain has many previous appearances.  The last Golden Age appearance of the Cheetah was Wonder Woman #28 (March 1948) which is a relatively long time out of the spotlight.  For Dr. Psycho it is Wonder Woman #18 (July 1946).  This makes WW 160 only the fifth appearance of the Cheetah (following WW 6, Sensation 22, Comic Cavalcade 11, and WW 28) and the third full appearance of Dr. Psycho (from what I can tell).

I have 4 copies of this; the highest is a VF+.  I wanted the slabbed 9.4 that was auctioned in September but I put my money into other books.  There are 22 graded copies according to the census.

In summary, there are many reasons WW 160 is undervalued even before any hint of a DC cinematic universe.  A compounded increase in value will depend on Warners’ plans for the characters.  Also have a look at Wonder Woman #163, first S.A. Giganta (a personal fave) and Baroness von Gunther.

If this book was already on your list, hope you may have learned a little. Looking forward to reading along.