I stopped actively collecting comics for resale when I dumped most of my collection in 1999 so I'm a little out of the loop. I was doing some shows at the North East Comic Con last weekend and noticed a couple of sellers selling the 90s Jim Valentino Guardians of the Galaxy series for a TON of money. One guy was asking $250 for the first 30 issues.

These were always quarter bin comics. I know the movie is super popular, but as far as I know, the movie has zero to do with the pre-00 GotG comics.

Did I miss something?

We discussed the movie-inspiration version here, but yeah, it doesn't appear that the '90s version is related other than in a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats kind of tangential way. My expertise is with the '70s version, though, so I'm not a good resource.

They were worthless before the movie. I`ve owned their first appearance in Marvel Superheroes #18 for decades. I couldn`t care less about it...still don`t. Except for the title it has nothing to do with the movie. It was worthless; now you can find mint copies on ebay for over $500.

It's just speculation pricing hoping catch newbies who are looking for anything Guardians-related. Tho it was the first time the Guardians had their own title so that's got to be worth something, right? Checking Lone Star Comics, they have #1 in Fine condition for $18.

I loved Valentino's Guardian's run. Even when Michael Gallagher took over, it was still fun. I have every issue.

As a heads up, Frank Cho drew the GotG annual that came out yesterday.

Just a minor correction... the original Guardians does include Yondu, a character that was adapted into the movie. So while the movie clearly is driven off of the 2008 series, some material from the original era is in there. With possibly more to come in the sequel.

And I'm a huge fan of the Valentino run. I have all of the comics and some original artwork as well.

Except for the same name; the movie version is very different. If I remember correctly his ancestors were earth people who already colonized the galaxy when Major Vance finally landed on a distant planet a 1,000 years after leaving earth. I guess they figured out warp drive while he was in suspended animation.

The original series has Yondu, but he's virtually indistinguishable from the character in the film.

I liked Valentino's run in the 1990s. Though I have to imagine there are hordes of those issues floating around in collections. They were mostly quarter bin fodder for many years and every issue back then sold in numbers that would look stellar today.

Yeah, the movie character is practically a cameo.

You realize what you wrote here means they're basically the same right? Think you might have been going for "virtually unrecognizable"

I did really enjoy the Valentino run. One of the reasons I never picked up the 2008 books was because it was so far away from the Valentino run. I really enjoyed the future versions of (then) current day Marvel characters.

The Abnett/Lanning series did tie into the original Guardians of the Galaxy (Starhawk and Vance Astro became members); it tied into a bunch of things, including Starlin's Warlock.

Considering they picked up most of these characters from obscurity (one of the great things about Annihilation), I wonder how the early appearances of Rocket, Star Lord, and especially Groot are doing.

I enjoyed Valentino's run (I really liked Marvel cosmic back in the day, and also loved Lim's Silver Surfer), but I thought he was always the odd man out in the original Image founders as far as art and popularity goes. (As a side note, I didn't realize until I just looked it up that Chris Claremont was going to be one of the Image founders until he dropped out when he couldn't find a suitable artist for his Huntsman creation)

I know Yondu shows up in the modern day comic too, what's the story behind that? And did they explain why Bug, from the Micronauts, was also a member (I know he was in the Kree prison in Annihilation)?

Valentino created Shadowhawk, right?

Yeah, it was. The original releases for each founder were:
McFarlane: Spawn
Lee: WildC.A.T.S.
Liefeld: Youngblood
Portacio: Wetworks (but then dropped out because of family reasons)
Larsen: Savage Dragon (the longevity of his run is pretty amazing)
Silvestri: Cyberforce
Valentino: Shadowhawk

Basically all the X-artists, Spider-man artists, and Valentino. I know I read GoG regularly, and it got that Galactus foil cover and all, but was it really that popular?

And, over two decades later, I still have no idea how the hell Jim Valentino ended up there.

I'm reckoning he was pretty tight with someone like Lee or McFarlane.

Valentino was buddies with Liefeld. In fact, the two of them pitched a Young Avengers comic in the 90s that was rejected only because it coincidently mirrored the already in-development "New Warriors."

Valentino once touted that while GOTG wasn't a bestseller like the other books, it was always on an upward sales trend gaining readers and not losing them.

Maybe they kept him around based on his own self-publishing efforts in the 80s?

Isn't he still working there? The only Image books I read is WD and Lazarus....and I just borrow those. I'm sure I saw his name in on the ad pages.

Yeah Shadowhawk was kind of terrible, but I met Valentino at a con once and he was a REALLY nice guy. So I kept buying it.

Coincidentally I also met Peter David once in the 90s. One of my very favorite writers who has a strong reputation for being a very friendly, polite person, he was kind of a dick. Maybe he was having an off day or something.

I think Valentino was the head of Image for a while too. It's not that he was bad; I certainly enjoyed his GoG stuff, it's just that he stood out among the rest of the flashy Image founders.

Same thing is happening with "The Man Called Nova" series from the 1970"s Those books were in the quarter bins for years, now issue #1 goes for $150+ in near mint.

If I remember correctly, Valentino was somehow vital to running Image as a business in the early days. I think his experience with independent comics helped the other Image founders, who were all very green in the field.

I personally picked up a double page spread from Valentino himself when he did one of his early store signings, but I have no regrets having sold my issues many years back (when a film adaptation of GOTG was not even an itch in Kevin Feige's pants). I had it professionally framed and matted (along w/the actual pages and the comic, so it takes up a lot of space on a wall).

I know I bought the first 12 issues of this book at least, but can't find them anywhere now that I want to try to make a few bucks.