X-Force #1 sold millions of copies upon its release in July of 1991. It also drew attention from the mainstream media, thanks in part to the rising star of artist Rob Liefeld. While it stands as one of the most iconic comics of the decade, it does not do very well on the back issue market. However, in a bizarre turn of events, certain copies of X-Force #1 are now selling for record-high prices, thanks in large part to a sales gimmick common at the time.
In the early 1990s, there was an influx of speculators into the comics field, all looking to make money off what they thought were surefire investments. These speculators would often buy multiple copies of a book, hoping to flip it later for a profit. Publishers began catering to this mentality in a variety of ways, be it gimmick covers or sealing the comic in a polybag with a trading card. The latter gimmick proved to be especially popular, and both publishers did it on multiple occasions; X-Force #1 was one of the most notable and sold approximately five million copies. This was good for retailers in the short term, but in the long run, many copies were left unsold and thus a glut, which translated to the book being practically worthless on the back-issue market.
But now certain copies of X-Force #1 are selling for record highs on eBay. The copies in question were bagged with a Deadpool card, and the Merc With a Mouth’s continuing popularity with fans has apparently resulted in at least one copy going for $100. A quick scan of listings on the auction site shows that while other copies are not going for quite that high and are instead in the $40-$50 range. That is still a considerable increase over what it was going for earlier, and especially when compared to non-Deadpool copies.
Folks contemplating investing again in X-Force #1 thirty years later may want to look back to the 1990s to see why that is a bad idea. The speculators, whose presence led to gimmicks and massive overprinting, had abandoned the industry by the middle part of the decade—a move that almost destroyed comics, and it would be many years before sales would rebound. While the current fervor over X-Force #1 is a trifle compared to the boom of the 1990s, buying comics solely to sell them later defeats the purpose of comics in the first place.
But either way, X-Force #1 has become a collector’s item again, and somewhere, someone’s thirty-year investment has finally paid off.