Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez's Old Guard is getting the film treatment, which will kick off the feeding frenzy among collectors especially when the first teaser trailer drops. The best part is that they are still cheap at the moment.
This remains one of my favorite limited series I've read in recent years, and I hate that we were only given five issues. Since then, I've been crossing my fingers for a sequel, but we're getting the next best thing - a film adaptation from Netflix. Rucka's story of immortal soldiers being double-crossed and threatened with having their secret revealed to the world was tailor made for movie screens. It's got a stellar cast lined up, most notably Charlize Theron and Chiwetel Ejiofor, which you can read about in Variety. That star-studded cast will add to the exposure.
I'm not predicting the Old Guard comics to necessarily volcano, but the mainstream attention will escalate values once a trailer drops. If the movie is a hit, then the newfound interest from passing fans will help keep those prices up.
Below I've broken down current values all five issues, and the standard covers are fairly cheap. What you'll want is to find all five issues and any variants or second prints because the value will be in having the complete set.
This is the most expensive issue in the series, especially if you happen to have some of the variants. My personal favorite is the dealer-incentive gold foil, which in a 9.8 brought a record-high $175 twice this past spring. The last recorded sale was for an impressive $150 on June 27. For a breakdown of the more rare variants, check out this post from Comic Book News & Speculation.
The standard cover has been on the rise thanks to the Netflix news. In a 9.8, it has a 90-day average of $63 compared to the 2018 fair market value of $42. However, the past month has seen bigger increases in individual sales. Just last month, one sold for $75, and another sold for $88 in March.
In a graded 9.8, the standard cover for this issue last sold for only $6. The price will be going up in the coming months, but it should remain a cheap pickup. The more valuable edition is the women's history month variant, which last sold for $40 in February.
There haven't been any recorded sales of a graded Old Guard #3, but that only means the prices are still basically cover price for raw copies. By itself, this isn't going to bring much, but if you have a full set of graded 9.8s, then you may have a valuable set, particularly if you include the variants.
You have three options for the fourth issue. First there's the standard cover for which there are no recorded sales of any graded copies. There's also the variant and sketch editions. A 9.8 variant cover sold for $25 in February while the sketch edition brought $20 in January.
Rounding out the series, Old Guard #5 is another issue that collectors aren't generally having graded, which results in no graded sales data. However, we will see that change when collectors begin having the entire set graded.
