The EVIL of Pence Variants

So as promised, here is my Ebay story.

I received this in the post and I was a tad upset. Like furiously upset.

Advertised as a 'Fine' condition comic book and had a picture that was nothing like what you see here. Thing was I paid £20 for what was photographed as a Fine condition Daredevil #168 Cent Variant. I eagerly waited for over two weeks for this thing to arrive in a diabolically shoddy, second hand 'Play.com' envelope. Upon opening the envelope it slowly dawned on me that I had been screwed over... Condition wasn't that great, and something worse...

You see, I suffered the biggest problem us British American comic book collectors have to deal with: the Accursed Pence/Cent Variant Switcheroo.

I had decided pretty early on in collecting comics, that if I was going to collect comic books, and especially the proper Key books, then these comic books must be Cent variants. The reason, I justified, is that these are American comic books, and to feel truly genuine they need to have American currency values on the cover. Sad I know, but that's my rule and I have to stick to it. And I am not alone in the UK in upholding this rule.

I have discovered over the years that the Pence Variant is a dominant feature of the UK direct market certainly around 1981, I'm pretty sure that there are others eras earlier than this, but this is the one that is proving extremely problematic for me. And for those wondering, from what I can tell the ONLY difference between a Cent edition and a Pence edition is the actual price denomination (there are no British adverts to take the place of 'X-Rey Spex' adverts!). For me, it just looks wrong.

There's also a monetary value at play here also. Take Iron Man #129 'Demon In The Bottle' issue, you can pick up a high grade, pence variant copy of this book for a couple of quid (and it looks great in frame near your wine rack), but to buy this as a Cent variant in the same condition is treble that. And this is the apex of my rage at Daredevil 168, and the reason I think I got shafted by the seller, who (and this doesn't feel too harsh) either MISLED me into thinking what I was buying was what I was buying. Or upon discovering that his REAL DD#168 didn't make the price he thought it ought too, switched it to the lesser valued variant. And hoped I wouldn't notice.

How this relates to the Batman Quest is this: I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go directly Stateside to pick up a lot of early 1980's Batman. As this is the time where the problematic pence variants appear in the local, UK market. In short, I think it will be really hard to get hold of a cent copy of Detective Comics 505 in the UK than I thought it would originally be. Which kind of sucks in one way.

Or it means that a holiday is called for.

I properly threw my toys of the pram over my Daredevil #168. The seller had the gall to claim that as he was a 'comic dealer' (which his eBay feedback didn't support, although he has sold some Mint copies of 'Pirate' and 'Private' to a bloke in Germany) he would regularly use 'stock photo's', and that this was simply a mish-take, rather than a misdirection. Of course he disputed the condition, which is, as always, totally subjective but after nearly a month and daily emails, I got my money back.

Truthfully, I had to get my money back, by being a totally belligerent and gratuitous pain in the arse.

So beware people. If you have think something is too good to be true, it probably is.

Beware of the Evils of the Pence Variant.

Holy First Appearances!!!

If you're going to introduce a new villain into a canon, where there is a load of classic villains you'd better go all out. You'd better say something a bit different... and you'd better be arrogant to make the characters first appearance a background story, to make Batman readers sit up and think: okay, bring it. Thank Darkseid that it was Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake who not only brought it, but kicked ass and took names doing it.

Doug Moench makes the Black Mask alter ego Roman Sionis as pretty messed up geezer to start with, made worse by a serious of unfortunate incidents. This is a villain that has decided that his true face is best to be hidden. There is no duality at play with this Batman villain. Duality has been rejected, by permanently affixing a mask onto his face he personifies Black Mask consigning to history Roman Sionis. This is a glorified rejection of all that is good, normal and nice. Also, he has a serious personal grudge against Bruce Wayne (which is a nice change to the villain having a grudge against the Batman) thus therefore bringing interaction to the Dark Knight.

After the 'Crisis' re-set button was pushed in 1986, Black Mask dropped from view and developed from what Moench had originally created into something that the Batman universe was crying out for: a crime lord. Black Mask evolved, or more accurately changed, from an unstable, hammy horror villain into the archetypal gangster that Gotham City probably ought to have almost overnight. Still a bit loony, this new Black Mask-gangster incarnation would expects his followers to also wear masks, to ensure their loyalty and respect. By the 2000's it's fair to say that the Black Mask has been fully developed into a dangerous, manipulative gangster by Batman's key writers, if you need a benchmark storyline I'd suggest the War Games saga, where he is an integral player and a proper bastard.

As a result, Black Mask is very much a top line villain, and deserves it's place on this list. Sadly, somewhere along the way he was killed off, and a Black Mask II was developed. This second incarnation was clumsily introduced after 'RIP', and will probably be thrown into the fireplace of The New 52.

When I read Batman #386 the first time (about a year ago) it became clear to me that this character's origin was too good to be totally ret-conned and forgotten about. The deviantly perverse thought of fixing masks to victims was to be latterly mined by Grant Morrison, of all people. Want proof? Read this issue and the read Professor Pyg's introduction in Batman & Robin #1. There is a genuine nastiness of gluing a mask to a persons face, and this was obviously recognised by Morrison.

Big Event: Death in the Family

When Denny O'Neill took editorial control on the Batman books, he would become responsible for some of the most important story lines that have ever affected the Batman character. The bravest moment, of probably two that he made, was asking the Batman readership whether Jason Todd, the second Robin, should be killed off.

Yes, it was a publicity gimmick, described by O'Neill as 'The Great Robin Experiment', and it really, really worked. I'm old enough to remember it getting a segment on 'John Craven's Newsround' (a kid's news show on the advert-free BBC, for those who don't know), which meant that this event went mainstream all over the world. The 'experiment' was decided by a phone poll, and the results were 5271 to 5434. The result: a paltry 72 votes decided that a teenage boy (true, a brilliantly written fictional one) should be beaten to death and then blown up. The only people that treated this event as a wake, were the Batman editorial team, who ordered food so they could await the final result in the DC offices.

So, the main event of this Starlin/Aporo storyline (which had showed Batman and Robin fighting the evils of child pornography, atomic terrorism, African famine, crazed Islamic dictators and corrupt charities) was that Jason Todd had to Die.

It's the consequences of Jason Todd's death that are more interesting for me. It was how this death would be used as a narrative device for the next twenty years. As O'Neill noted in 'From The Den', part of the success of Batman was because there was also a Robin. And this formula had successfully worked for over fifty years. By pulling apart the Batman and Robin team it would allow writers to explore a 'back to basics', lone Dark Knight but by doing this it might alienate a section of the readership. Recognising this the many writers were clever enough to make Jason Todd's death as an additional emotional factor for Bruce Wayne journey into the dark night. So that Batman was now haunted by another ghost to avenge on the mean streets of Gotham City. In short, new emotions, new stories, new possibilities! Great decision!

However, decision doesn't reflect in the actual monetary value of the comic book. While I am quickly closing in on the completion of the Denny O'Neill era of Batman, this is one of a handful of books that I felt I had to pay a little more for (which, at this point in the Quest, is very rare). Fortunately, I picked it up for a paltry fee at a comic mart. This was surprising, as it proved to me that the market value of this story has not responded to this massive event in Batman folklore. Yet, I do think that in future years, as these books will become rarer to find on the open market in NM condition, I predict they will rise in value as the market corrects itself. Regardless, of the telephone gimmick, I truly believe that this storyline is still very, very important. So if you're a collector of Batman (like me) then snap this storyline up as soon as you can.

Don't worry though, Jason Todd may have died, he did recover. In the science of comic books it is possible to recover from being bludgeoned with a crowbar, and then blown to smithereens. It just takes a few decades to do it.

The Annual Issue 2: Batman Annual #11

Alan Moore, as far as I am aware, has only written a handful of Batman Stories. One of these is an almost forgotten tale that featured in Batman Annual #11, and was released in 1987.

Clayface falls in love with a mannequin he sees in a department store window. Because Clayface is a bit deranged to start with, he believes that her alluring gaze as a sign of affection and then decides to move in. While secretly living under a table during opening hours, his new relationship blossoms and sours. Of course, jealousy and murder is the only real outcome and the Batman has to come in and sort out this domestic arrangement.

To be fair, I'm not really doing the story justice. It's very dark, it has got a chilling underlying nastiness about the situation, that implies abuse. And any story involving a man involved in an intense, implied sexual relationship with a life-size doll is just, plain, wrong... This Moore tale is simply 23 pages of what a mentally sick Batman villain gets up to when he isn't trying to take over Gotham (and then the world).

What I love out of this story is that this is the Alan Moore that I enjoy the most; the humorous subversive Alan Moore. Sure, I love his serious work, but if you offer me a choice between Promethea or, say, Smax, then I'm going for Smax every time. And this story has that similar darkly comic, almost deviant quality. While funny and charming, it still retains a lot of the aforementioned menace and that's what makes it memorable. While the situation and storyline smells of farce, the captions ensure that behind the lunacy, Clayface really turns out to be a really nasty piece of work. Illustrating that this is the reason that Batman cannot, and should not, leave him alone in peace.

Further proof, that some some Annuals can actually be rather good. And for a whole in one experience they can be a thoroughly wondrous thing.