10 Comic Book Crazes You Totally Forgot Were A Thing

Even if you've barely touched a comic book in years, but have a passing awareness, you likely know that The Incredible Hulk #181 is the highly coveted first (full) appearance of Wolverine. The book is one of the best scores any collector could add to their collection, but you have to be careful in acquiring one.

Marvel used to throw a "Marvel Value Stamp" inside its books, which were collectible images you could cut out of your worthless old comic book to place into a binder. Fans would do this and put them inside a Marvel-issued booklet, and they were popular.

Sadly, this means that you might think you are in luck when you acquire an issue like Hulk #181, only to find that some kid cut it to pieces on the inside decades earlier. The value of the book is drastically reduced as a result, and publishers kept up this sort of thing for years.

When Image and Valiant began selling their books int he 1990s, they did the same thing. Readers would cut out a coupon hidden inside the pages of the book, and send them in for a special issue. This usually meant a collector would buy an extra copy to leave unharmed, but not always. Fortunately, the fad has mostly passed, leaving newer books unharmed where a pair of scissors are concerned.