1st Appearance's Found In Dollar Bins: Cheap Comic Book Investing!

Welcome all to the first instalment of my weekly article titled: 1st Appearance's Found In Dollar Bins: Cheap Comic Book Investing! In this article I am going to highlight comic books that can be found in the dollar bins and also contain first appearances (Or as I like to call it Double Bingo!). The way the comic market is, it seems that almost any book can go from $1 to $100 so it's always a good idea to pick up first appearances cheap when you see them! Now I am not just going to start listing every first appearance of every Marvel and DC character as that would be pointless. What I am going to do is highlight characters which fit a number of criteria which have always done well for me in the past. Now before we begin lets take a look at the steps I follow when choosing which first appearance books to buy, even if they are only a dollar.

1.Now the first criteria to look for is the number of appearances the character has had. A higher number of appearances means that the character has been part of quite a few story lines which does mean a greater chance the character will be used in movie or television adaptations.

1. Who is the creator, and is he or she aggressively pushing for their character. A creator that is vocal and publicly pushing their creations, are more likely to succeed in having those characters be used in a property.

2. How well received are the storylines the character is part of? If the storyline is well received there is a better chance that storyline will be adapted for movie or television, meaning a greater chance for that character to appear.

3. What are the characters powers and origin? Is the character one that can be well liked by the masses?

Now that I have given you my basic outline we will revisit this same outline weekly as I give you real life examples...Now let's get started!

The 1st instalment will be focused on a character I can personally see becoming a major player within the new DC Streaming Universe, and may be the perfect place to introduce this red headed heroine. The character I am speaking of is none other than Maxine Hunkel or as you may know her Cyclone. Now some of you may be scratching your heads thinking "I have never heard of this character", well if that's the case then you must be missing out on a lot of stories! Which leads us to criteria #1, number of appearances. Believe it or not this character has had 97 appearances within the pages of DC Comics, which is actually a huge number. So far so good!

Now the character first appears in Justice Society of America #1 Volume 3 which is actually the first issue in a great series.
Oh and guess what? The writer and creator of this story was none other than Geoff Johns. Yeah you know, not a big deal, just the CHIEF Creative Officer for DC Comics, and pretty much the guy helping to shape the DC movie universe going forward.

Ok so I think we can check criteria #2 off the list with this one!

Next we take a look at how well received the storylines are that the character is part of. Well in all honesty there are a number of storylines that I personally like featuring Cyclone, but the one that stand out is ironically the one which features her first appearance, Justice Society Of America: The Next Age. Now if you don't trust my critique, just take a look at goodreads.com where The Next Age has received a 4.02 score out of 5 with 1200 votes being cast. That is pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

Finally let's take a look at the character as well as her powers and origin. First things first, there is just something amazing about red headed female super heroes! Now Cyclone has a power set involving the manipulation of wind. She is able to create and manipulate cyclones and whirlwinds as well as create giant Tornadoes. She can also create strong bursts of air, and can glide on wind currents simulating flight. A very cool power set that can play well on the big or small screen! When taking a look at her origin, we become aware that Maxine Hunkel is the grand daughter of the original Red Tornado (Member of the Justice League, and originally premiered in the Golden Age of comics!). As a 6 year old Maxine was kidnapped by the villain T.O. Morrow and was injected with nano bytes giving her the power to manipulate wind. She is later invited by Power Girl and Mr. Terrific the join the Justice Society of America.

Well when applying our criteria to this character, it is quite evident that this one is a BUY BUY BUY! We should be seeing more of the character in the future, and when that happens you will have hoped you spent $1 now instead of $100 later!

Hope this was useful, especially because there will be many more to come! Until the next one..

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