Marvel Unexplored Film Genres to Find Comics to Speculate (Part 1)

One fruitful way to think about movie based comic book speculation is by looking at unexplored film genres. In order to keep things fresh, MCU will need to constantly look for new themes to give audience new experiences.

In the following, I speculate on some film genres might be used in Marvel Phase 5. All these is based on my speculation and is not grounded any objective evidence. It is meant to give you ideas so that you can analyse further what books might be overlooked.

1. Jurassic Park

This genre of films include the likes of Jurassic Park, Jumanji etc. Their purpose is essentially to show a jungle based world to the audience, most of which are based off interesting locations and animals.

Savage Land

Marvel has its own Jurassic Park and it is called Savage Land.

Some of the more alert comic speculators have already caught on to this genre and started to buy comics like X-Men #10, Shanna the She Devil #1 etc in anticipation.

Of the two, I would say Shanna the She Devil #1 currently has the higher ROI potential based on current price and what might be done to her. Ka-zar is just Tarzan and hence can be difficult to differentiate. A female Tarzan like Shanna has been less explored and might be the focus.

Let compare Shanna the She Devil #1 with another #1 in the Bronze age

IssuePrice of 6.0Price of 8.0Price of 9.0
Shanna the She Devil #1USD 50USD 80USD 150
Night Nurse #1USD 150USD 300USD 900
Copies above 6.0Copies above 8.0Copies above 9.0
Shanna the She Devil #1306265225
Night Nurse #127016790

Night Nurse #1 obviously has a lower supply, especially in the high grade conditions. If we look 9.0 and up condition for example, Shanna the She-Devil #1 has 2.5 time as much supply. Hence, we need to set a lower price ceiling to account for this difference.

However, even after lowering the price benchmark, there is still plenty of growth left. Assuming Shanna #1 should be 50% of Night Nurse #1, it is still USD 450 in the 9.0 grade, which is 3X higher than its current price.

Besides these 2, other characters dealing with Savage Land includes:

Uncanny X-Men Annual 1988

Date of Publication:
Sale number:

Key strengths of this book
1. First appearance of Mathew

This is the son of Kazar and Shanna. In this issue, Mathew is just a child. However, he would later go through a time machine which aged him to a teenager.

Astonishing Tales 2

Date of Publication: 1970
Sale number:

Key strengths of this book
1. First appearance of Petrified Man

Every hero needs a villain and Petrified Man is one of Kazar’s most frequently occurring enemy.

Outside of Kazar, Petrified Man didn’t really make any major appearances, thus making him really obscure unless you have read Kazar’s series before.

Astonishing Tales 3

Date of Publication: 1970
Sale number:

Key strengths of this book
1. First appearance of Zaladane

Any residence of Savage Land is Zaladane. She claimed to be a sister of Polaris of the X-Men but there was no resolution on that front.

Zaladane has appeared in both X-Men and Kazar series. Fans of Jim Lee’s X-Men run will know of Zaladane during the Shi’ar storyline.

Monster Island

However, there is another location that fits into this genre, which is Monster Island. This can be a more interesting and potentially more profitable speculation due to the Marvel Monsters who can appear on the island.

Many of these Marvel Monsters are usually found in early Silver age books. These books are harder to find which can lead to stronger spikes in prices if news were announced.

Tales to Astonish #13 is one example of such a Silver age book that has spiked. Another would be Strange Tales #90, which first spiked on Iron Man #3 rumors and now the Shang Chi rumors.

The problem is that there are so many Marvel Monsters that it is hard to predict which ones might appear on the Monster Island.

Besides the monsters, the other obvious speculation will be for monster hunters. i.e. Elsa Bloodstone as well as her father. In the same vein, another newly created character that has a history with monsters is Kid Kaiju found in Totally Awesome Hulk #3. This issue also has a 1:20 cho variant.

2. Horror

To me, this is a separate genre from supernatural although in almost every discussion I have seen, it has been grouped together.

Kevin Feige himself specifically said that horror has many faces and named Poltergeist as an example of horror, which goes to show how the Studios is viewing this genre.

Below is his quote from 2018 when asked about supernatural in MCU

Kevin Feige

 “I think, again, horror can mean a lot of things. Horror, did you mean a movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Hostel or a Friday the 13th or a PoltergeistPoltergeist is a little bit more my wheelhouse, that’s such a great movie and it scared the heck out of me but it’s really fun. I don’t know, I certainly would like to play with as many genres as possible.”

In this aspect, most of the comic speculation has been on supernatural action-adventure type of films. Basically, these are like “Underworld” but with Marvel characters. This is where Ghost Rider and Blade etc fit into.

However, there is hardly any talks on which characters, storylines can fit into a true horror film like what New Mutants is doing. Movies that can truly scare you, rather than be another action flick.

So, which Marvel comic characters can fit into such a horror theme. Man Thing comes to mind, with its dark and scary tones.

Which other characters or stories are truly horror based?

Conclusion

The above is purely based on my reading on what genres Marvel can go into. None of it is based on any facts or rumors. The purpose is to provide a different set of perspectives that can set you down towards different paths of exploration.

Stay tuned for part 2!

5 thoughts on “Marvel Unexplored Film Genres to Find Comics to Speculate (Part 1)

  1. I’m loving the frequent updates. This is my favorite speculation blog! How about an article about lesser-known Avengers (ie Wonder Man, Jacosta) and their key issues.

  2. I couldn’t leave a comment in the newsstand sales as it’s not an option. However I had to comment on the most recent one. There was absolutely no shill bidding involved in the UF4 CGC 9.8. I know the person who sold it and it was actually bought by a person who recently directed a major super hero film. Shill bidding usually involves driving up the price and if they win they offer second chance offers or relist it. This auction started at $6000 and all the bidding happened in the final minutes. There’s no evidence of shill bidding so I think maybe looking into it before putting the seller out there would be appropriate.

    I also think your missing alot of data because you’re not looking at any results on newsstands that don’t have newsstand in the title. Most post 98 newsstands that sell aren’t labeled as newsstands. I know because I track a lot of key issues and various searches. I also buy a ton of them.

    1. Agreed with the missing data part. There is just no way to track every book that isn’t label a newsstand.

      What do you include in your search keywords other than newsstand?

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