Batman, Spider-Man missing, Winnipeg Police Service on the case

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This article was published 09/11/2023 (934 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A St. Vital comic book shop owner is counting his losses after someone smashed the store’s glass door Wednesday night and made off with a pair of collectible editions.

Ashley van Oeveren, who owns 204Comics at 1549 St. Mary’s Rd., said he was at home watching television with his wife when he got a call from his alarm company.

“We came down here as quick as we could and we showed up to our one door — the glass was broken — and they had taken a few things. Luckily, they didn’t do a lot of damage inside the store,” he said Thursday.

“Glass everywhere. They were obviously in a hurry, they grabbed a few things. It looks like they tried to grab more, but maybe just in the rush, stuff was kind of strewn about.”

Van Oeveren said a handful of comic books and the empty cash register were taken.

Among the comics stolen were Batman Adventures #12 CGC 9.4 and Amazing Spider-Man #194.

“They’re probably about $1,000 apiece. There was a handful of cheaper books that they took, but the main thing was those two,” said van Oeveren.

The Batman comic includes the first appearance of character Harley Quinn, while the Spider-Man issue has the first appearance of anti-hero Black Cat, he said.

“They do have some significance to the hobby and to anybody who collects those kinds of things,” van Oeveren said.

He suspects, based on what was stolen, that the thieves weren’t comic book connoisseurs.

“They cleaned out the one display case that was closest to the door, and we keep the cheapest stuff in that case. I think it was smash-and-grab, take what they can, I don’t believe them to be targeted or anyone who had real knowledge of what they were taking,” van Oeveren said.

“There was definitely books, and we have video games in the store that are worth significantly more than what they took.”

Van Oeveren said he was looking at the brighter side of a lousy situation.

“No one got hurt,” he said.

“When the alarm company called, we were more concerned if they would have taken our point-of-sale system, or something like that. The ability for us to continue doing business is far more important than a few books that can be replaced.”

Winnipeg Police Service officers, who were alerted by the shop’s alarm company, arrived as van Oeveren was cleaning up.

Police spokesman Const. Claude Chancy said officers were called to the shop at about 10:20 p.m. and spoke with van Oeveren.

Property crime investigators will take over the case. Police have not made any arrests at this point, Chancy said.

Van Oeveren had yet to decide whether seeking an insurance payout would be worth paying his policy’s deductible and potentially increased premiums.

“Hopefully the stuff gets returned, but life goes on,” he said.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca