Fans today tend to forget that the X-Men were anything but a success out the gate. The original run, cancelled after sixty-six issues in 1970, never really found its footing or its audience, and for a few years, it looked as if the characters would fade into the background of the Marvel Universe, relegated to guest stars in other characters’ titles. All that changed when Chris Claremont took over the comic, beginning his legendary sixteen-year run on Uncanny X-Men with the title’s ninety-fourth issue. Across that sixteen years, Claremont introduced some of the most iconic heroes and villains in the Marvel Universe. However, Claremont didn’t just write comic stories. He wrote epics, some spanning across numerous titles, issues, and even years. To populate those epics, Claremont introduced literal scores of supporting characters, the scope of which could rival George R.R. Martin or J.R.R. Tolkien. Of these, few fit the criteria of “obscure fan favorite” better than the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard, the colorful henchmen of Claremont’s Shi’Ar galactic empire.
Despite a fifty-year history, the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard have never made much of an impact outside of hardcore X-Men fans. They’ve made the requisite appearances in X-Men: The Animated Series, a few members have received action figures in both Toy Biz’s X-Men and Hasbro’s Marvel Legends lines, and even a recent cameo in X-Men ’97. However, this week the team looks poised to break records, with a copy of their 1977 first appearance, X-Men #107, set to sell for a price of more than $4k. And the reason has nothing to do with the story or the characters it introduces: it’s because of an ad. The comic, CGC-graded at a 9.8, comes with an insert advertising Pennsylvania-based Mark Jewelers. With “no higher-graded copies on the CGC census,” this copy is one of a kind, and it last sold in 2021 through Heritage for almost $14k. As speculative pricing continues to affect X-Men characters ahead of the team’s MCU reboot, even minor keys like this one are seeing a bump in value, meaning that this auction could see that $14k figure met or exceeded.
One of the challenges of writing a comic with a super-hero team is finding villains powerful enough to pose a serious threat. For the artist, it also poses the challenge of making a battle between a half-dozen super-heroes and their villain interesting — how do you make sure everyone has something to do? Three major solutions have been adopted, visible in the pages of X-Men, as well as other major super-hero team books like Avengers and Justice League: the first is the master-planner, a villain so physically or mentally all-powerful that they are the match for an entire team of heroes (Magneto, Doctor Doom); the second is the monster, a character so large and physically imposing that it takes a whole team to battle them (Juggernaut, Shaggy Man); the third is the anti-team, where each hero is given a designated villain to fight, like the Masters of Evil or the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard.
When Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum were designing the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard as opponents for the X-Men, Cockrum had the idea to base the team on DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes. Prior to his work on the X-Men, Cockrum had penciled Legion of Super-Heroes for DC, establishing now-iconic Bronze Age costumes for much of the roster. The Legion, a staple of DC Comics since the late fifties, were a futuristic, multi-species band of adolescent heroes, their adventures appearing in Adventure Comics, Action Comics, and Superboy — with the Boy of Steel among the roll call of their dozens of members. For the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard, a Legionnaire was chosen for each member as an analog. This includes Superboy / Superman, who was the basis for the Imperial Guard’s leader, Gladiator (incidentally making Gladiator one of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe). Wanting an opinion on whether DC would let the “tribute” slide, Cockrum showed the Imperial Guard concept to current Legion writer Paul Levitz. As Cockrum recalled in 2003’s The Legion Companion, Levitz didn’t think DC would have any problem with it: “If anything, he said, ‘Geez, these costumes are better than the ones the Legionnaires are wearing.”
The Shi’Ar Imperial Guard were a helpful foil antagonist for Claremont through his X-Men run, letting him translate character-driven drama into a visceral action sequence, as with the climax of Uncanny X-Men #137. There, the Imperial Guard battle the X-Men to determine the fate of Jean Grey, on trial for crimes against the Shi’Ar Empire after annihilating an inhabited world in her Dark Phoenix form. The Imperial Guard have no real bearing on the story, but are a helpful means by which to inject some action into a plot-heavy, dialogue-driven issue. They’d serve a similar purpose during the “Brood Saga” two years later, as well as in Uncanny X-Men #274-277. The modular nature of the team’s large roster meant that Claremont (and future writers) could add or subtract members as-needed, keeping the team appropriately sized for however many heroes they were fighting.
Collectors love a challenge, and that’s exactly what collecting Mark Jewelers variants is. Beginning in the early seventies, both Marvel and DC Comics began including a four-page insert advertising Mark Jewelers’ products in select comics. At face value, it seems like an odd pairing: why would a jeweler want to advertise alongside Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Spex? The answer, apocryphally, was that Mark Jewelers’ inserts were included in comic books sold in and near United States military bases, and the advertisements were intended for soldiers reading the comics. As you can imagine, this represents a very small percentage of the comics produced and distributed — as well as a very small percentage of the copies that survived, especially in high-grade condition. Given the era, Mark Jewelers inserts cross paths with some of the biggest key issues of the Bronze Age, like Iron Man #55 or Werewolf By Night #32.
Many collectors don’t see the value in the inserts: they’re an advertisement, and don’t affect the comic itself. However, there’s so few of the comics to go around that this has little impact on the market for Mark Jewelers variants. It’s not uncommon for only a single high-grade copy of a Mark Jewelers issue to exist, as with X-Men #107. At that point, the issue itself hardly matters: the collectibility comes from the one-of-a-kind nature of the comic. That’s why this copy of an obscure mid-seventies X-Men issue is holding its own in an auction alongside mega-keys like the first appearance of the Punisher or Doctor Strange — two issues specifically that, at the time of writing, the bidding price on X-Men #107 has exceeded. With two days left to bid, the comic may also break its own record-setting price, in what’s proving to be a regular occurrence with Heritage’s comic auctions this year.
Did you know about the history of Mark Jewelers variants? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
