Without knowing what it was or what it contained, I recently purchased a Limited Edition Codename: Ric Flair Title Box, and this is what was inside the box.
For starters, the Ric Flair title box was a WhatNot exclusive, but my local comic shop, State of Comics in Plymouth, Michigan, had a number of them on the shelf. It’s a pretty large box, taller and wider than a standard comic book, and you can’t see what’s inside, so I asked if it was an action figure or something else, and the owner of the shop told me it was supposed to be a mix of various issues and variants of the Codename: Ric Flair comic book that I missed when it first came out, with the possibility of pulling an autograph or other surprises, so for $24.99, the mystery was too good to resist.
I opened the box when I got home, and the first thing I saw was a great looking issue of the comic book Codename: Ric Flair. Apparently, this is the WhatNot exclusive cover, limited to 3,300. It’s very spacey and ethereal, with gorgeous pinks and purples. It’s a great looking comic. In addition to this, on top of the comic was a “digital comic and collectible card,” featuring the same image as the cover. If you know me, you know I love wrestling cards, so I was happy to get this, as well, even if I won’t open it or use the digital comic.
The second comic in my box was a “virgin” variant of the Ric Flair comic (ironic, huh?). This means that the cover image is the same, but there’s no text or title. It’s just the cover image. The virgin variant is limited to 1,550 copies, so it’s rarer than the first WhatNot exclusive variant.
The third comic in my box was the black and white version of the WhatNot exclusive cover. The black and white variant is even more limited, with only 650 copies, so each comic was rarer than the next, but even though the black and white variant still looks great, I was a little tired of pulling variations on the same cover, and was hoping I’d get a little more variety.
That was all of the comics in my Limited Edition Codename: Ric Flair Title Box, but wait, there’s more! Underneath the black and white variant was a “Golden Ticket.” The Golden Ticket was a numbered postcard that stated, “You won a slab! WOOOOO.” A slab, in comic terms, is a comic book that has been authenticated, graded, and sealed, and like slabbed and graded trading cards, a slabbed comic book is typically more valuable than an unslabbed comic. This was pretty exciting, because the ticket was numbered out of 50, so this is not a common item.
The instructions on the ticket included two steps. First, post a picture of your ticket on social media with the tags #ricflair and #ricflaircomic, (note the misspelling of “Rick” on the ticket) and then email that same picture to the redemption email given on the ticket. I was a little nervous about posting it on social media, because my thought was anybody could repost and email the golden ticket, and possibly steal my slab, but I thought I better follow the directions, and did as instructed.
A little preview from my next wrestling comic column! Woo! #ricflair #ricflaircomic pic.twitter.com/LRl1EPEzx7
— Josh Olsen (@_WorkingStiff) November 21, 2023
What happened next was … nothing. Well, almost nothing. My social media post didn’t get any interaction from Ric Flair or any sort of Ric Flair comic related account, and the email I sent bounced back, “because the address couldn’t be found, or is unable to receive mail.” Just to be safe, I sent a second email, and it bounced back again. I even submitted a message on the Ric Flair comic website, and received no reply. According to other social media posts, I’m not the only one. I found eight other posts on Instagram with the #ricflaircomic hashtag showing a Golden Ticket, with two of them including comments or replies that they never received or heard back about their slabs, which is disappointing, to say the least.
With that said, three variant comic books, and a trading card, for the price of $24.99 isn’t a bad deal, but getting shorted on a slab, and discovering that this is par for the course, left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. If I ever do receive my Golden Ticket slab, I’ll be sure to update my review, but in the meantime, it looks like I got WOOOOO!-rked.
December 6, 2023: Scout Comics, the publisher of Codename: Ric Flair, contacted me and sent me the comic book slab I won from the Golden Ticket.
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