John Byrne Fantastic Four Omnibus for cheap

mwhitt80

Yesterday I was trolling Amazon to see the prices of Howard the Duck Omnibuses (to expensive there) and came across this
John Byrne FF Omnibus in the market place. There are a lot of new copies for $39.00 after shipping. I guess Marvel had them in overstock. I ordered one this morning.

I thought you guys might want to know about it.

Hex

Yep. Marvel has been blowing out many of the hardcover overstock in the last month or two. I picked up that Byrne FF Omnibus at my LCS for only $25. I already have all those issues, but to get an over-size collection of my favourite run of FF in one volume at that price was too hard to pass up. New bedtime stories for my girls, my youngest daughter can barely even lift it!

shroud68

I thought I got a good deal @ $60 at Wild Pig. Regardless it is worth full price and at 40 bucks it becomes a must.

Elsiebub

Yeah, these deals are absolutely insane. I just picked up the Jason Aaron Wolverine Omnibus for $27 and the FF Byrne Omnibus for $37. Free shipping on both. No sales tax. The cover price total would be something like $225, and they're available for $64 total?? They're on eBay as well. It's pretty obvious that Marvel released an unsold batch of these into the wild.

fredzilla

I can't keep spending money! ~X( I got a copy anyway. At these prices I think you should probably buy a couple extra copies and then sell them in 5+ years and rake in the cash. A quick look at the Thor Simonson Omnibus shows new and used copies selling for $120+. I think mine was $75 from DCBS. $-)

chrisw

I guess the demand for the Byrne Omnibus wasn't as high as expected, as it's one of a handful of Omnibi that seems to have gone drastically down in price, which is atypical for those. I sold mine a few months ago - don't recall what I got for it, but I know it was substantially less than I had hoped for.

$120 is exactly what my Simonson Thor Omnibus went for. And that even went into multiple printings. Imagine what it would be going for if they'd stuck to one.

I love the Omnibus format, but since my main interest was in reading the stories, I'm perfectly fine doing that digitally.

Elsiebub

fredzilla said:

I can't keep spending money! ~X( I got a copy anyway. At these prices I think you should probably buy a couple extra copies and then sell them in 5+ years and rake in the cash. A quick look at the Thor Simonson Omnibus shows new and used copies selling for $120+. I think mine was $75 from DCBS. $-)

Yeah, I hear ya. Especially regarding the "I can't keep spending money!" concern.

In various forms (TPBs and single issues) I already own most of the Aaron Wolvie stuff in its Omnibus, and a decent amount of the Byrne FF stuff reprinted in its Omnibus as well. My thinking is that I'll probably be able to sell this stuff online (ebay, Half, or Amazon) and trade in the rest of it to my LCS for enough store credit to make up the difference. Keeping that angle in mind made it easier for me to buy the Omnibi I just did, because... even if it's a great deal, $64 is still $64. At least this way I'll be able to sort of consolidate my collection, and the resale/trade-in stuff makes the pill a lot easier to swallow.

chrisw said:

I guess the demand for the Byrne Omnibus wasn't as high as expected, as it's one of a handful of Omnibi that seems to have gone drastically down in price, which is atypical for those.

I really hope that this sales performance doesn't mean we won't get a Vol. 2 of the Byrne FF. I think I liked the second half of the run more--all the stuff with She-Hulk--but maybe I have rose-colored glasses because those issues were when I first started collecting comics.

The fluctuating sales prices of the Omnibi are very strange. I bought the Death of Captain America Omnibus for like $17 a couple years ago, in much the same situation as what we're discussing now (it seemed like the marketplace was all of a sudden flooded with liquidized copies). Now I look on Amazon and used copies are going for $120 minimum. It's just so hard to predict, though. At the moment I can't imagine the Byrne FF Omnibus ever fetching that kind of price, and certainly not the Aaron Wolvie Omnibus . . . but who knows.

chrisw

Elsiebub said:

I really hope that this sales performance doesn't mean we won't get a Vol. 2 of the Byrne FF. I think I liked the second half of the run more--all the stuff with She-Hulk--but maybe I have rose-colored glasses because those issues were when I first started collecting comics.

Ironically, they'll probably publish the second Byrne volume at a lower print run since the first one didn't sell out, and then that one will end up going for crazy prices down the road.

fredzilla

chrisw said:

Ironically, they'll probably publish the second Byrne volume at a lower print run since the first one didn't sell out, and then that one will end up going for crazy prices down the road.

I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Marvel was going to stop making omnibus' and instead focus on the their premier hc. Maybe it was when news of the Epic Collections came out? Perhaps it was they were not going to do creator specific omnibus anymore (Simonson, Thor; Byrne, FF; Claremont/Lee, X-Men, etc.)? Maybe I just remember wrong? :-??

shroud68

The best part about the Bryne FF omnibus was the inclusion of MTU and other stuff. The non-sequential stuff before he took over completely. It gave u a great grasp of why his run is so great. Volume 2 may be in the pipeline but it will be significantly less "must have" despite the She Hulk stuff.

jkkeller914

A bit more digging, and I found the X-Statix Omnibus for less than $30. Snapped that one up...

kfreeman

Great find! Ordered!

Trev

I think the whole omnibus concept fizzled once they went to 'any great run' and away from 'great runs that are expensive to get'. The Kirby FF run was a natural choice. Byrne you can still buy the singles easily for $1 or less. Hard to justify $100 for material you can pull together easily for 25-50% of that price. I think the reaction on simonson Thor probably led to these others and it was just then that people got "Omnibus Fatigue" and started complaining about how hard they were to read.

chrisw

jkkeller914 said:

A bit more digging, and I found the X-Statix Omnibus for less than $30. Snapped that one up...

That one surprises me. A few years ago, I sold my collection of trades as well as the oversized hardcover that collected that entire run for well over a hundred dollars on eBay when I'd heard rumors that they were doing it in Omnibus.

chrisw

Trev said:

I think the whole omnibus concept fizzled once they went to 'any great run' and away from 'great runs that are expensive to get'. The Kirby FF run was a natural choice. Byrne you can still buy the singles easily for $1 or less. Hard to justify $100 for material you can pull together easily for 25-50% of that price. I think the reaction on simonson Thor probably led to these others and it was just then that people got "Omnibus Fatigue" and started complaining about how hard they were to read.

I think the ability to get more of that stuff digitally will kill these bigger collections in the long run. There will always be collectors of certain books, but I think more and more that when people simply want to read the stories, and they can't or don't want to dig through dollar boxes, they'll simply go digital. I used to love Omnibi, but once I got the ability to carry the same amount of comics on my Kindle, and take them anywhere, I quickly soured on them.

Chuck_Melville

chrisw said:

I think the ability to get more of that stuff digitally will kill these bigger collections in the long run.

Oh, I hope not!

mwhitt80

I'm a fan of the omnibus format. I just like them (I also like 90s Ghost Rider so you might want to take my opinion with a grain of salt). They are heavy and can stop a tank shell (Invisible Omnibus...), but it's nice to be able to sit down and read all the issues without having to pull out anything else. If I get bored with the series or tired of reading the same writer for 5+ issues I drop in a book mark and put it back on the shelf for a month or so. I would hate for them to go away but it wouldn't be the end of my world.

As an open fan letter to Marvel: please bring the Howard the Duck Omnibus back into print. I promise I have a little more cash and will be able to order it now.

Nick

I was just at C2E2 and these omnibuses were all over the place. The ones listed above, Atlantis Attacks, Women of Marvel, and the Jim Lee X-Men. I actually don't like reading omnibuses because they are so unwieldy, but dang what a good deal!

gavi

I recently got the Claremont/Jim Lee Uncanny X-Men Omnibus for $39 and X-Men Inferno for $20 on amazon

Hex

Just saw that the Bryne FF Omnibus volume 2 is set for release Dec.13.

mwhitt80

I'm bought out on Marvel Omnibus collections right (Byrne FF, Fraction's Invincible Ironman I&II) but the XMen Fall of the Mutants is $35 including shipping and Mutant Massacre in $20.00 including shipping. Both new in Amazon sellers