Modern Age Leading a Market Comeback?

Now that fall is here and the end of 2025 is around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to evaluate the overall state of the comic book market using GoCollect's comic book stock ticker -- the Collectible Price Index (CPI). A tool similar to the S&P 500, Nasdaq, or the Dow Jones with an index for each comic book "age" (e.g., Silver, Bronze, Copper Ages), the CPI takes a 50,000 foot view by selecting blue chip comics from each Age and assembling them into several composite indexes.

When I last wrote about the state of the comic book market about six months ago in March 2025, the Silver Age CPI was down nearly 5%, the Bronze Age CPI was down nearly 6%, the Bronze Age CPI was down nearly 7%, and the Modern Age CPI was down over 10% during the preceding 12 months. About six months later, we can see using GoCollect's data that the market, with the exception of the SIlver Age, has generally started to improve in a measurable way. As we'll see below, the big surprise -- in a positive way -- is the Modern Age.

The Silver Age CPI has dropped another 4.38% over the past six months.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Silver Age Index has continued to struggle over the past six months, dropping yet another 4.38% over the past six months:

Although it's not the worst performing index over the past six months, it is nearly so and has shown the least amount of improvement among all the indices since I wrote my last blog on this topic six months ago. Except for the first appearance of Brainiac in Action Comics #242, there haven't really been any standouts over the past six months that could've propped up the Index; in fact, the two most heavily weighted comics, Fantastic Four #5 (first appearance of Doctor Doom) and Showcase #22 (first appearance of Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern), are the most responsible for dragging down the Index as a whole over the past six months:

That might be a little surprising since Robert Downey, Jr. is set to make his big debut as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday in 2026.

The Bronze and Copper Age CPIs have performed less badly during the past six months.

This may be faint praise, but the sharpness in the decline of the Bronze and Copper Age CPIs has shown signs of slowing down during the past six months. Back in March 2025, the Bronze and Copper Age CPIs had experienced 6% and 7% declines respectively over, but since March both indices have lost less than 5% -- roughly on par with the Silver Age Index:

While heavily weighted issues like Incredible Hulk #181, Giant-Size X-Men #1 and Werewolf By Night #32 dragged the Bronze Age Index down, House of Secrets #92 and X-Men #94 helped ensure the losses for the Index overall were less steep than they had been in the recent past. As for the Copper Age, we don't see any dramatic swings for any particular issues -- just a mild decline across the most heavily weighted keys.

The Modern Age is showing signs of strength.

Most surprising of all is that the Modern Age is showing the greatest signs of strength during the past six months, with the Modern Age Index increasing 3.37% in value:

While most would not call a 3.37% increase in value over six months a bull market, it definitely is notable considering that we've been mired in a long-running bear market for over 3.5 years. It's also interesting that the Index that is perhaps leading a market comeback (don't say I jinxed anything) is the Modern Age, a set of key issues that tend to be less rare, in better condition, and less well known than their peers in the other Indices. If you survey all of the issues included in the Modern Age Index, you'll see that more than a few keys are tanking; however, at the very top of the Index, the most heavily weighted issues, Invincible #1, The Walking Dead #1, and NYX #3, are outperforming most of the market:

Are you surprised that the Modern Age Index has produced positive returns for most of 2025 thus far? Do you think it's a leading indicator of a turnaround for the comic book market or is this really only about a handful of very popular books such as Invincible #1?