After a few new contenders crashed the Hottest Comics' top 10 party, some familiar faces took a dive in sales volume over the past week. This is a weekly cold comics update, so if you missed last week check it out.
COLD COMICS
Granted, Thor #5 dropped less than ten positions, but I expect this will be a trend...at least until Donny Cates and the Marvel editorial team bring back Black Winter.
For months, the build-up to Marvel’s new, all-powerful threat to the universe caused an uproar among speculators. Month after month, the teases continued until Black Winter made his full debut in Thor #5. Now it appears Black Winter is no more. Alas, we hardly knew ye.
Keep in mind we are talking about comic book death. That is, more or less, a vacation for a character. In dealing with a villain so powerful as Black Winter, I expect him to make a full recovery from death in the next year or two, maybe even sooner. There is no way Cates will let him collect dust for too long, and his resurrection will put Thor #5 back in the top 10 Hottest Comics. Until then, it will take a few hits.
This staple of the top-five Hottest Comics has slipped outside the top 20. Of course, this is Deadpool, and fans often have a love/hate relationship with him. That tends to be the case anytime Marvel latches onto cash cows and oversaturates the market with them. In this instance, it has brought down sales volume for New Mutants #98, but that trend will only last for so long. Eventually, whether it is from a movie announcement or a new comic series, Deadpool will make a glorious return to form.
It is hard to be any hotter than Miles Morales has been since the summer. The fair market values for Ultimate Fallout #4 broke through the stratosphere, and those ballooning prices have yet to burst. It took the second print of UF #4 along for the ride, and it was nearly a top-10 Hottest Comic just a week ago. The market can be fickle, and buyers have pulled away from the second print. Like New Mutants #98, I expect this issue to recuperate and be back in at least the top 20 before too much longer.
What happened here? Just last week, this was the seventh-most traded comic online. Now it is barely clinging inside the top 50. Such is the market pendulum.
What made this issue popular in the first place was Monica Rambeau being featured in the trailer for WandaVision. Fans saw her as a child in the Captain Marvel solo movie, but it seems we will get the adult version in the Disney+ series. Will she take over the role of Captain Marvel as she did in the comics? If that happens, this issue will be red hot, and that could start with WandaVision. Don’t take your eyes off this comic just yet.
Has the bubble burst for Punchline? The Joker’s main squeeze has fallen on hard times as her debut issue, once among the most coveted new comics, is narrowly inside the top 100. With so many new characters and their first appearances taking up many speculators’ budgets, it seems that Punchline does not have the same appeal from six months ago. However, it appears that DC has bigger plans for the villainous sidekick, and that will trigger a resurgence in popularity.
