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“Back then, the idea was just to further a storyline,” says Brent Moeshlin of Alabama’s Quality Comix, one of the biggest vintage comics dealers in the United States. “Nowadays, it’s about pushing the customer into multiple products.”

And push they do. DC Comics alone has had three massive continuity overhauls in the last 15 years alone—Flashpoint/The New 52 in 2011; Rebirth in 2018; and Infinite Frontier in 2021—along with several line-wide shifts and new initiatives. And while Marvel has never technically rebooted its continuity, it did completely destroy the multiverse in 2016’s Secret Wars, and has had a similar number of new initiatives.

This story is part of an editorial series presented by eBay.

ROUGHLY SPEAKING, COMIC-BOOK SHARED UNIVERSE

continuity didn’t really take hold until 1961. Right before Marvel had Spider-Man swinging through the world outside the Fantastic Four’s windows, the folks at DC decided to put all of their Flashes in the same book with The Flash #123, “The Flash of Two Worlds.” And since then, audiences couldn’t get enough— Amazing Spider-Man #1 in 1963 had Spidey trying to get a gig with the Fantastic Four, and later that year, the Justice League met their Justice Society counterparts in Justice League #21’s “Crisis on Earth-One.” And that one might be, if you squint hard enough, the first superhero comic summer crossover, an event that would change the world of comics collecting.

The dawn of the “event” crossover as a product came in the mid-1980s, first with Marvel’s first Secret Wars in 1984 and shortly thereafter with DC’s first full reboot, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Secret Wars was a blatant multimedia cash grab—Mattel, a toy company, licensed Marvel’s heroes for action figures on the condition that there was a story that would give kids an excuse to mash their toys together. That’s exactly what Marvel did, beaming a group of heroes and villains to Battleworld, putting them in new costumes, and making everyone fight. Some of the changes were long-term—Spider-Man’s black costume, which would eventually become Venom, debuted on the cover of Secret Wars #8, and things like that have a marked effect on a comic’s collectability.

“If there’s a really good cover, those will stand the test of time,” says Ali Mir of AnZ Comics. “It doesn’t matter what the storyline is; it still ends up going up in price.” Despite the quality of the interiors being a bit iffy, the cover of Secret

Wars #8—with Spider-Man looking puzzled at his new black outfit —has pushed its value up into the three-figure range.

But quality matters. Good stories are the ones that have legs in the collector’s market regardless of covers. Crisis on Infinite Earths is dense and beloved, in no small part because of comics legend George Perez putting out some of the best art of his career. “Something like that still sells really, really well,” says Mir. Crisis on Infinite Earths #7’s depiction of a crestfallen Superman weeping over the dead body of his cousin Kara, a.k.a. Supergirl, is one of the most iconic images in comics history, making graded issues worth upwards of $75.

The recent glut makes the hunt for quality even more important for gauging collectability. Something like Secret Empire, Marvel’s 2017 summer event that saw a Captain America heel turn (to be generous), is not well remembered and has largely been relegated to dollar bins. “It took me years to get rid of all the demand for it.” Spoilers for folks who haven’t read it: Secret Empire is bad, and even its variant covers— of which there were approximately a billion—can be found in dollar bins around the world.

Look for events that were well received in the moment and still generate interest a few years later. Something like Jonathan Hickman and team’s X-Men relaunch, House of X/Powers of X, which launched Marvel’s mutants back to the forefront of comic fans’ minds, has real staying power. Another sneaky pickup that Mir flagged for us: Devil’s Reign, a Daredevil event series from a few years back. “That was another really well-written story that I think in the long term, especially when you get Daredevil: Born Again coming out on Disney+, that people are going to look back on [fondly].” The multimedia tie-in probably won’t hurt, either.

The Flash Of Two Worlds

The Flash #123

The first major reworking of continuity in comics history, the Flash of Earth-One (Barry Allen) meets his comic-book hero inspiration (Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick) and discovers that he’s real and from a parallel Earth. Silver Age key comics aren’t usually cheap, but this one can be had for a few hundred dollars, so it’s relatively affordable.

CRISIS ON EARTH-ONE

The first time the Justice League and Justice Society met has been reprinted multiple times in several collected editions, but if you want a copy of the single issue, be ready to pay a premium: even poorcondition graded copies are going for upwards of $200. A near-mint copy might be tough to find and even tougher to afford.

SPIDEY’S FIRST TRY AT THE F4

The first time Spider-Man tried to join the Fantastic Four also happened to be in the first issue of his solo series in 1963, so it’s going to cost an arm and a leg to buy: be ready to shell out $5,000. But it’s worth it. This is one of the most important superhero books ever published, and when Spidey inevitably shows up in a Fantastic Four movie, it’s going to skyrocket.

SPIDER-MAN’S BLACK SUIT DEBUT

The epitome of the “mash your action figures together” style of event comics, Secret Wars was a blatant multimedia tie-in, the first of its kind. But just because it wasn’t the best story doesn’t mean it’s not pricey—the first appearance of Spidey’s black costume is a big deal, and it’ll cost you around $50-200 for a good copy.

THE DEATH OF SUPERGIRL (THE FIRST TIME)

Crisis on Infinite Earths is beloved, perhaps because of its densely packed continuity porn—DC decided to restart with this event and try to streamline its intricate history by compressing all of the multiple Earths down to one universe, wiping away any complications. Like, well, Supergirl, for one. This issue has one of the most imitated covers in all of comics, with Superman holding his cousin’s corpse and weeping. As such, it’s a solid investment at $75 for graded copies.