While not as famous as San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con (NYCC) is still a huge event for our community each year. At this year's NYCC, Daredevil: Born Again stars Vincent D'Onofrio and Charlie Cox made surprise appearances, a new trailer for Born Again was released, and James Gunn spoke about the DCU's upcoming Superman, Lanterns, and other projects. Let's take a look at some of those announcements and how they may have impacted the market.
Muse, a serial killer, will appear in Born Again.
While the "big bad" of Born Again will clearly be the Kingpin, we also saw several other characters appear in the trailer, including Muse, a serial killer who uses his victims in his artwork. Deciding to use Muse is definitely a sign that Daredevil will be like it was on Netflix: dark and gritty. Muse first appears in Daredevil #11 (2016). While I personally consider this a very questionable investment, the market has been eating this book up. While the rest of the market has been grinding through a long-running bear market, the value of a CGC 9.8 (by far the most common grade on the CGC Census) has really jumped during the past year.
The 30-day average sales price of a 9.8 is $263, considerably higher than the one-year average sales price of $173. While I might consider buying high-grade raw copies of this issue, I wouldn't buy graded copies at current price points. As we have seen over the past two years, it's too easy to increase the supply of graded copies of Modern Age comic books. Right now, there are only 139 universal blue labels on the CGC Census; however, that supply could dramatically increase if collectors choose to submit their raw copies to CGC now that we've received visual confirmation of Muse. And once supply increases, values are likely to go down because it'll be hard for demand to keep pace.
Krypto will appear in Superman: Legacy
At NYCC, Gunn also spoke about his love for Krypto, Superman's dog.
“Krypto, that’s been something that’s just been amazing. We’ve been working with him in the edit. He’s an incredible part of the story to me personally.”
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone since Gunn also made Cosmo the Spacedog a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Krypto first appears in Adventure Comics #210 (DC 1955). Because this Golden Age comic is so rare (there are only 170 universal blue labels on the CGC Census), it's difficult to tell whether Gunn's announcement has moved the market in any meaningful way. That being said, only one copy (a CBCS 3.0 yellow label) has actually sold during the past week and only three have been listed on eBay. Clearly, the owners of those 170 blue labels haven't been motivated to bring their copies to market.
Lanterns will feature both Hal Jordan and John Stewart.
James Gunn also discussed the Lanterns TV series that will feature Green Lanterns Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). This intergalactic take on the buddy cop genre will focus on Hal mentoring a young John Stewart. Stewart's first appearance in Green Lantern #87 has seen an increase in sales volume recently; during the past week, 11 copies (raw and graded) have sold on eBay. Values have mostly remained flat, however; for example, if you take a closer look at the most common grade on the CGC Census (surprisingly, an 8.5), the 30-day average is the same as the 90-day.
But we do see that the 30-day average is about 9% higher than the one-year average which is notable considering that we've been in a long-running bear market.
