AVENGERS: CELESTIAL QUEST #2

Cover shows sharp, unblunted corners and clean, glossy surfaces with strong color and no visible creasing or spine stress. The book is in a protective sleeve which limits full assessment, but no chips, tears, or fading are evident along the edges. Interior pages and back cover were not assessed, so grade is based solely on front cover appearance.

Avengers: Celestial Quest #2 continues the eight-issue limited series in which Steve Englehart revisited characters he had shaped during his 1970s Avengers tenure, chiefly Mantis and her Cotati-linked destiny, set against Thanos and the cosmic stakes surrounding her son Quoi. Jorge Santamaria pencils over Englehart's script with Scott Hanna on inks and color by Hi-Fi Design, giving the run a slick early-2000s cosmic look. The series functions as a late coda to the Celestial Madonna cycle rather than a story that introduces new franchise pieces, and #2 sits squarely inside that narrative rather than opening or resolving it.

Market profile is that of a plentiful modern direct-edition Marvel comic printed in the post-speculation era, when print runs were modest but survivorship in high grade was excellent. There is no established certified market for this issue: graded copies are scarce on the census not because the book is hard to find, but because grading fees exceed any plausible return. What demand exists is driven by two soft currents, completists assembling the full eight-issue run and buyers chasing Mantis and Thanos appearances in the wake of their screen exposure, with the Cotati material drawing renewed curiosity after Empyre. Neither current has produced measurable price movement on this particular number.

Buyers are set collectors, Englehart readers, and Mantis specialists, and the practical way this book trades is as part of a complete run in a single lot rather than as a standalone purchase. Across grades the spread is narrow: low-grade and mid-grade copies transact at bin-level pricing, and the only meaningful premium sits at the top of the grade scale, where a certified copy is priced by the cost of certification and the scarcity of anyone bothering to submit one. Dealers should treat it as run filler with speculative upside contingent on future screen use of the Cotati storyline.