Are Valiant Comics Worth Anything?
Written by sean
Posted on June 22, 2009
Valiant is a tricky beast. Some Valiant comics are the most valuable comics of their era, and some are the least valuable.
Here’s a guide to what’s what.
Pre-Unity Books
The only regular edition Valiant comics that are worth anything are the pre-Unity issues, and the last few issues of each series.
By “regular edition”, I mean the normal copy of the book that hit newsstands and comic racks. Not the gold logo books or the V.V.S.S.
The pre-Unity books are:
- Magnus, Robot Fighter 0-14
- Solar, Man of the Atom 1-11
- Harbinger 0*-7
- X-O Manowar 1-6
- Rai 1-5
- Shadowman 1-3
- Archer & Armstrong 0
- Vintage, Magnus Robot Fighter 1-4 (these were reprints of old Gold Key stories)
[*A note about Harbinger 0: There were two versions of Harbinger 0 printed. The first was the version that people could get by mailing away the coupons in the first 6 issues of Harbinger. This version had a pink cover. The second print has a blue cover, and came sealed in a polybag with the trade paperback that reprinted Harbinger 1-4. The blue version is common, and not valuable.]
Most of the above list of Pre-Unity books have at least some value. Most will sell for $3 to $5, with a few, like Magnus, Shadowman, Archer & Armstrong, and Vintage Magnus, possibly selling for less.
There are a few standouts in the list, they are as follows, with the price range that they sell for:
- Magnus 0 ($20 – $50)
- Solar 10 ($10-$20)
- Harbinger 0 pink ($20 to $50)
- Harbinger 1 ($10 – $25)
- Rai 3 ($10 – $20)
- Rai 4 ($5 – $15)
These values are approximate, and depend on how many folks are buying books on ebay, the condition of the books, and so on.
Series Last Issues
The last issues of any series tend to have some value, mostly because a comic book usually gets cancelled because sales are low. As a result, there is usually significantly fewer of the final issues of a series.
Of the last-in-the-series Valiant issues, the real standouts, in terms of value, are:
- X-O Manowar 68
- Solar, Man of the Atom 60
- Bloodshot 51
- Bloodshot: Last Stand
- Magnus, Robot Fighter 64
- Turok 47
These may sell from anywhere between $10 and $30. The couple of issues before the last may fetch a few dollars over cover price as well.
The majority of Valiant Books
All of the issues in between the pre-Unity issues and the final issues, well, not worth so much. The Unity issues and the issues that came out a month or two after Unity may sell for a dollar, but I have bought them for as little as 5 cents each.
These issues that aren’t really valuable include most of the well known Valiant books and first issues, and the various chromium, or “shiny” issues. Bloodshot #1, Turok #1, H.A.R.D.Corps #1, X-O Manowar #0, Shadowman #0, Bloodshot #0, Ninjak #1, Magnus #25, Rai #9, and on and on. There is an overabundance of these issues, and they don’t have much resale value, if any.
Some of them do have pretty cool stories though!
The issues from the Acclaim years, pretty much everything that came out after the Birthquake crossover, may be worth a dollar or so each, because sales were down and few were printed.
Everything in between is from the years when Valiant was incredibly popular and sales were high, partially due to so many people buying these comics as investments.
We discussed the comic boom and speculator’s bubble that occurred in comics in this time in Only The Valiant episode 5.
Gold and V.V.S.S. books
The gold logo books were incentive books that Valiant gave to people for supporting or promoting Valiant.
These are worth about $10 to $20 each. The stand outs are the first gold logo books printed, Archer & Armstrong 0 gold, and Eternal Warrior 1 gold, especially the flat version.
When Eternal Warrior 1 gold was printed, many of them were shipped to west coast comic book shops accidentally. Many shops put these up for sale, thinking they were second printings.
It didn’t help that Marvel comics used gold ink on their covers at the time on second printings.
Valiant printed the remainder of the Eternal Warrior 1 gold books with an embossed cover to distinguish it from the regular version as a premium. Both of these are amongst the most valuable gold logo books, selling for $20 to $30, though the flat version tends to sell for a little more than the embossed.
V.V.S.S. is a series of signed books that Valiant produced. They are differentiated from other signed books by a certificate of authenticity, and they are embossed with a Valiant V.V.S.S. seal.
The earliest of these produced, like Turok 1, Rai 9, and Magnus 25, sell for about $10 – $15. The later few sell for significantly more, with the last couple, Eternal Warrior 27 and Geomancer 1 selling for as much as $100 or so.
Red books, bluebirds, and all the rest
There are two variant books that are worth quite a bit, these are Unity 0 red, and Chaos Effect Alpha Red. These differ from the regular versions because they have red where there is blue on the regular versions.
Unity 0 red and Chaos Effect Alpha red both sell for between $40 and $80. The Chaos Effect Alpha Red (or CEAR, as it is affectionately known), tends to be worth a little more than Unity 0 red.
In addition to these red variants, there are blue variants of a few of the trade paperbacks. On the Rai trade paperback variant, the background is blue instead of black, on the X-O Manowar trade paperback variant the logo is blue instead of black, and on the Harbinger trade paperback variant the blue Harbinger Foundation logo is blue instead of black, which is why this variant is often referred to as a “bluebird”. These variant trade paperbacks can sell anywhere from $5 to $15 or so.
Last of all are the Diamond Unity trade paperbacks. These trade paperbacks collect Unity in two volumes, and are bound versions of the single issues. Of note is the fact that the first volume uses a gold logo version of Eternal Warrior 1 instead of the regular version.
These trade paperbacks are quite rare, and usually sell for over $100 each. Note that these are different from the regular Unity trade paperbacks that Valiant released, which collects Unity in 4 volumes.
True Value
Of course, the real Value in Valiant Comics is in how much you enjoy them. The majority of Valiant Comics may have been printed in huge numbers, so that they aren’t worth much on the open market, but the stories are good.
If you aren’t going to recycle those boxes of Valiant comics from 1993 and 1994, pick a few out and read them. Then recycle them.
I am of course, biased. I am a huge fan of Valiant comics, and the Valiant characters. In my mind, I got a deal for the price I paid for the books in my collection.
Value may be determined by how much someone else is willing to pay for something, but worth can only be determined by yourself. I love me some Valiant Comics, and to me, they are worth a lot.