I have been watching Ebay closely the last 2 days. The amount of Captain America #25 Wizard Universe has been selling is just un-believable....They must have bought THOUSANDS of copies of this book and I do not believe they have sold one single copy at regular retail price. Isn't this somehow against the law? If I was a LCS owner I would furious right now and I would look at any and all legal options. Wizard Universe and Marvel should be fully investigated about this whole fiasco and someone should be in trouble. I really do feel bad for the LCS around the country who literally got screwed by Marvel and Wizard Universe...They both have alot of explaining to do....

Against the law? Are they forcing people to pay the obnoxious prices?

No they are not, but is very obvious they got inside information about this issue to score thousands of copies. They literally cornered the market yesterday on Ebay. They both thousands of copies and sold NOT ONE for regular retail price, while the small LCS had they small amounts and sold them to their regular customers for regular retail price....Something stinks here....

It sucks, but I remember one of my (now out of biz) LCS selling Superman #75 for $10 on the first day.

ya...i smell something fishy.

A few days ago, before I knew what actually happened in Cap #25 (but I still had a feeling about it), I did a "Buy-It-Now" for one of the Wizard versions of the issue for $13.

IMO, it's not that big of a deal. It's just a variant cover, and the variants always go for more than retail price (Wizard and others do variants all the time). The two covers that came out yesterday (the Epting and McGuinness covers) were 50/50 so neither one of those should be worth more than the other.

Now the auctions for the Wizard variant alone are approaching $100 a piece. Crazy.

I just hope the seller will deliver....He could easily say sorry I could not get one and give you a refund...When it comes to money people will do anything...

You better not jinx me, lol.

Here's what he said in his reply e-mail after I sent the payment:

"Thank you for your purchase and quick payment. The WWLA convention is
in less than 10 days. I will have your comic in the mail before the
convention is over with. Please let me know if I can be of any further help."

Hopefully he'll operate on the first come/first serve basis. Judging by his feedback, he seems to pride himself on service. 99.9% rating and no neutrals or negatives in the last 12 months.

I see what Wildo is saying, and it would be comparable to insider trading (particuarly since Shamus' head is so far up the big 3's asses).

It's a shame LCS couldn't get a heads-up the way it seems Wizard did.

I am also sure Wizard will have plenty of copies for sale (at a premium of course) at their Wizard World this weekend in LA.....Wizard and Shamus should be investigated....NOW

On the day Superman #75 went on sale, the Death of Superman AND Marvel Masterpieces 1 both shipped from Skybox. I had ordered several extra copies of Superman #75. When I showed up at there were dozens of people milling around the entrance of the store. They had run out of copies before they had a chance to actually stock the shelves since so many people were wanting them. To their credit they sold every extra copy they had at face value.

As I walked out of the story, having spent more than $150 on cards and comics, the mob starts almost throwing money at me for one of my copies. I ended up selling two copies to one guy for $120. This basically covered the cost of my card boxes.

A few years ago, wasn't there some other complaint against Wizard Universe and their "insider" ties?

Wizard is STILL selling copies on Ebay...They are easily getting $60 for the set of 2 covers...Of course Ebay don't mind at all, they love the fees!

While I'm pretty sure there's nothing illegal about what Wizard has done, it does raise questions of morality. I am a huge fan of Captain America and only want to read the issue, but thanks to dealers like Wizard I will have to wait for Marvel to ship more issues or for them to rush this to a second printing. I refuse to pay upwards of $60 for a comic that I only want to read and have no plans to resell.

This is just yet another reason that I gave up Wizard magazine long ago and want nothing to do with them from now on.

or just wait for the trade!

I remember back in the summer of 1988 and visiting Oxford Books in Atlanta. I was looking forward to picking up Batman: The Cult. Those stupid dicks at Oxford Books bagged, boarded and marked the first issue at $15 the first week it was out thinking they had another Dark Knight Returns on their hands. Funny I went and picked it up at Walden Books a few weeks later.

Anyway they are out of business now. What comes around goes around, right?

Wizard Universe just listed on Ebay 2 Captain America #25 graded 9.9 for only $1000 EACH! Way to go Wizard, you are the best!

You'd think it'd be somewhat of a conflict of interest for Wizard, who publishes a price guide, to be so closely affiliated with a store that sells such over-cover-price comics. Unless Wizard no longer has a price guide, I haven't bought an issue in years.

9.9 LOL . . . whatever. That's just rich.

I thought Wizard was just about comic book movies

Seriously, I think that's the problem. Wizard's circulation has plummeted over the last few years. I believe it's less than half of what it was a few years ago. Thanks to places like newsarama.com, Wizard's monthly format just isn't getting the job done. So I think this was a quick way to make a buck and add to the business' coffers.

I can't stop watching the eBay prices for these issues go up and up. It's amazing. I would never, EVER, pay that much for a comic if it didn't come out in the 40's-60s - let alone something that came out three days ago.

I hope it is just desperate people trying to buy the issue to read and not thinking it is going to be a good investment.

Oh my word. I just did a search for Ultimate Spider-man and a lot of 20 cgc graded issues (graded 9.8 or better) is going for $1600. What the fuck?

this doesn't surprise me at all. Overstreet Price Guide was found out to have been hoarding issues that they knew were going up in value.

Hello, well I just found out on the Wizard website that Wizard has set a limit of 4 variants per person for the show this weekend because of the demand. I just found out that the seller I purchased my variant from on Ebay listed 49 variants over the past 2-3 days. Think my seller will deliver? Be warned, alot of sellers will NOT be able to fill orders!

While Oxford books is out of business, Oxford Comics is still around, located just under Buckhead. I think they probably make more on renting adult japanese anime than on comic sales given how many issues of mundane titles they seem to be stuck with month after month.