Mainstream audiences' love affair with Cable appears to be over, and values for New Mutants #87 are plummeting lately. It was fun while it lasted.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been enamored with Cable. New Mutants #87 was one of the first comics I recall saving up to buy, and it started me down the path of serious comic collecting. When Deadpool 2 premiered, I was there for Cable. Back in May and into the heat of the summer, I apparently wasn't the only one. Across the board, sales for New Mutants #87 were strong, and the fair market values were climbing the ladder. Then things changed.
It's normal for key issues to peak as studios build hype for a new movie or television show. Audiences are assaulted with trailers, ads, and promotional interviews until nausea. All this excitement for the new movie gets fans clamoring for those first appearances, and the sales go through the roof. If the movie is well-received by fans, then the prices tend to stay elevated after the release.
Audiences, however, have notoriously short attention spans, and after a few months, those keys begin to slide backwards. Depending on the popularity of the movie and that particular character, the slide can change exponentially.
Such was the case with Cable.
As Deadpool 2 teased us with our first live-action Cable, prices for NM #87 peaked in the spring leading to the May movie premiere. Take the 9.8 for example. In March, it was routinely bringing $600 sales and consistently stayed within the $500-$600 range all the way into May. Gradually, those values dropped. By June, those $600 prices were becoming more rare, and it was falling below $500. When October arrived, it was regularly selling for less than $400. These days, the 90-day average is at $421, which is respectable except when you consider that's less than the yearly averages for both 2016 and 2017.
The same is true for the 9.6. For the past two years, there was a clear upward trend, which was to be expected. In 2016, it averaged $232 and then moved to a $254 FMV in 2017. The 12-month average keeps the trend rolling as it stands at $264. However, the past 90 days have not been kind, and it's dropped to an FMV of $216.
This downward spiral is what can be seen in the averages of all the grades that have sold since October. Everything from a 9.8 down to a 6.0 (minus the 7.0, which has not sold in this span) has dropped in the previous three months. The lowest grade sold in these 90 days has been a 5.5, and it is the only slabbed copy that has earned money over it's 12-month average; for those curious, a single 5.5 sold for $75 in October, which is up $12 from the $63 fair market value.
Deadpool 2 was a box office success, yes, but these falling prices might can be blamed on over saturating the market. Once Upon a Deadpool (which was a PG-13 edit of DP2) was released earlier this month, and it was overshadowed by Into the Spider-Verse. Plus, most of the Deadpool and Cable fans - at least those old enough to either buy tickets or sneak in - saw the R-rated cut and likely weren't interested in the toned-down version, while the family audiences were wooed by Spider-Verse.
In the end, this is an example of the fluctuations of the market. If you bought an NM #87 at those spring prices, don't abandon ship just yet. As with all things X-Men, Cable and Deadpool will be back in the spotlight, and the market for their keys will pick up when that happens. There's just no telling when that will be.
