Amazing Spider-Man Obama Var #583

I’ve seen this top out at $89 on e-bay before shipping.

LOL I would never pay that much for this.

You might think this is a rant, it might even read like one, but it’s not. What I’m trying to do with this review is share my experience as a 20+ year comic reader/collector with you all. Yes, that’s right, I’m one of “those”.

You know how much this will be worth a year from now? $10 at most. Collectors never hurt the comic industry, but speculators do. Trust me, there’s a difference.

A collector is someone who buys books for his own collection, taking pride in the rare and collectable books he or she owns. Be it the first appearance of a favorite character, a major change in the status quo, or  even a cherished signature on one of the collector’s favorite books, it’s all done for the love of the stories and characters or creators involved. Sure, a collector my thin out his collection by selling some doubles or books he no longer wants, but the money made almost always goes back into the hobby when he buys more books.

A speculator is some one who buys a book solely because he thinks it will be worth something some day. Several people take advantage of this, buy up every copy of a book that has a lot of buzz, and sell them to the speculators for top dollar.  When the buzz dies down and the price drops, the speculators understandably feel that they got ripped off. It’s this phenomenon, along with high print runs and  bad story telling, that really caused the market crash in the late 90’s.

This book isn’t very collectable, except to hard core Obama fans. It's not the first time a President has been on the cover of a comic book (John F. Kennedy New U.S. President 1, 1961), 

it's not the first time a President has been in a Marvel book (Captain America 344. Probably not the first, but it comes to mind.),

and it's not even a first printing. The only unique thing about this is that it’s the first time a black President has been on the cover of a comic book. Not to say his taking office isn’t a historical event, which it is, but as far as comics go, it’s not a big deal. This is not going to be worth much in the future because collectors know this, and aside from the completers who HAVE TO HAVE every issue in a run, nobody’s going to be looking for this a year down the road.

My advice, sell it now while it’s hot. Don’t hold onto it, especially if you paid a small fortune for it, because you’ll be disappointed….

As far as a review of the book itself: I felt the Betty story was quite good, filling out the character nicely and showing a seldom seen perspective of Peter. The art was also fresh and clean. The back up story with Obama was pretty good, though a little cheesy at times, and I loved the villain that was used as we haven’t seen him in a while.