COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Diablo: Tales of Sanctuary nn Modern
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Grade:
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9.4
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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4274418001
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Owner:
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Qalyar
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Following the success of Diablo II and its expansion, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Blizzard released a compilation box set called the Diablo Battle Chest. Initially, this box set included CDs for the original Diablo, Diablo II, and Lord of Destruction along with BradyGames's nearly 300-page Ultimate Strategy Guide, and the manuals for both Diablo II and its expansion. All for -- originally, at least -- $39.99. It was a pretty good deal if you were newly jumping into the franchise. As time went on, Blizzard made multiple revisions to the Diablo Battle Chest, resulting in a surprisingly large number of... well, variants:
- Variant A: The first version of the Battle Chest had a portrait-oriented box; this release is referred to as the "Tall Box" by video game collectors. The Tall Box is not particularly common, and especially unopened copies have fairly substantial demand on the secondary market. There are rumors that one or more of the chain stores the drove the video game market at the time -- perhaps GameStop or Best Buy -- objected to the Tall Box because it didn't fit easily in their intended displays for the game. We'll never know for sure.
- Variant B: The Tall Box was replaced with the Wide Box, which is a landscape-oriented product. The Wide Box would be the basic design for the rest of the Battle Chest's lifespan. This first version of the Wide Box used the original covers to all three games and the strategy guide as its cover art. Importantly, these covers had some overlap. The center image, the cover to Diablo II covered part of the logo of the cover to its left, that of Lord of Destruction: the "O" in "Diablo" on the expansion cover is entirely concealed. Inside, the game CDs for this version of the box set came in jewel cases. Remember those? There are no production numbers available, but based on the secondary market, this is by far less common than the next two versions, and is comparable in rarity (or perhaps even more so) than the original Tall Box.
- Variant C: Someone at Blizzard decided that it was bad form for them to partially obscure the logo of their game on, you know, their games, and had the box art for the Battle Chest redesigned, spreading the reproduced covers apart a little better and leaving everything clearly readable. Inside, the jewel cases were gone as a cost-saving measure, replaced with black cardboard sleeves.
- Variant D: Faced with some compatibility problems as Windows versions marched on, Blizzard dropped the original Diablo from the Battle Chest, despite continuing to advertise it as "The Complete, Award-Winning Diablo Saga". Oops. Regardless, this version is easy to identify because the original game was also summarily excised from the box art, leaving only the covers of the sequel and its expansion and the strategy guide. This is -- by far -- the most common version of the Battle Chest. As of this writing, copies (even sealed copies) are readily available in the secondary market.
What does all of this have to do with a Dark Horse comic book? Well, although the normal version of Diablo: Tales of Sanctuary was indeed released normally by Dark Horse, this version has no cover price and was never distributed independently. Instead, it was a pack-in with the Diablo Battle Chest. Or, rather, with some Diablo Battle Chests. Specifically, this comic was only included in Variant B of the box set -- the first, and rarest, Wide Box edition. Evidently, the cost-cutting measures that led to the jewel cases being replaced with black cardstock sleeves also saw the removal of the pack-in promotional comic book from subsequent releases. Indeed, I've read some unconfirmed reports that suggest that not all Variant B box sets contained the book either! Although there's a possibility that those reports confused international releases of the Diablo Battle Chest with US Variant B boxes; for some time, they used the same cover art.
At the time of this writing, this 9.4 copy is the second highest graded example (of, admittedly, a population of two!) behind a single 9.6. I had gone through around a half-dozen raw copies of the variant looking for one suitable for encapsulation. I don't honestly think any of them could have even gotten a 7.0. A lot is stacked against this book. The contents of the Diablo Battle Chest were not well secured, so these comics were banging around in a box with three jewel cases, two game manuals, and a giant strategy guide. Many of them were casualties before the boxes were even opened. Additionally, the market for this product was not comic book collectors, and -- as with many video game pack-ins -- the survival rate is generally poor. Finally, I just do not think there were ever very many produced. Typically, there is perhaps 1 copy of the variant available in online secondary markets for every 5 or so copies of the normal comic. And remember, that's a normal comic that's also fairly scarce for such a high-profile modern book, with only a little over 6000 copies initially ordered (as per Comichron). Even if we assume that 6000 number is low because of other distribution channels, reorders, and whatnot -- perhaps the real number is closer to 7500 -- napkin math based on the availability ratios suggests that there might have only been something like 1500 of this version. Honestly, anything between 1000 and 2000 is believable. The bottom line is that this is a surprisingly rare book, especially in anything like collectible grade!
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