Riddle me this, riddle me that, who's afraid of the big, black bat?
When the new Batman movie drops next year, a new iteration of the Riddler will be etched into the eyes of the world. And with that, much like the key comic books of the Joker, the Riddler’s own will surely also see a spike in prices.
The riddle of the day? Which one should a speculator focus on?
DETECTIVE COMICS #140
First up is Detective Comics #140, which marks the first appearance of The Riddler/Edward Nigma in his origin story. In the issue, you follow Edward from when he was just an innocent young student praised for being good at puzzles to when he became the Riddler and tested his wits against the world’s greatest detective.
As expected of a Golden Age comic, relatively very few CGC graded copies exist; currently standing at an overall only 159 CGC graded copies across the entire grading range. Compare this to how many CGC 9.8 Spawn #1’s exist. With this low quantity in existence comes a low volume of sales in the market. Due to this, it’s very difficult to extract an overall trend at a high confidence level, but over the last decade, each sale after the next, the sales prices tend to be higher and higher.
Detective Comics #140 will surely benefit from the upcoming Batman movie, but it does not need it. At the risk of stating the obvious; this book is a good long term hold.
DETECTIVE COMICS #142
Moving just past the first appearance key of the Riddler, we take a quick look at his second appearance. Following his apparent death in Detective Comics #140, the Riddler resurfaces two issues later with a string of thefts in Detective Comics #142. To put into perspective the changing times, the Riddler steals a whopping $5,000 in one of his schemes.
Although Detective Comics #142 is of a similar rarity as #140 with just 62 total CGC graded copies, its market behavior has underperformed. Again, sales volume has been very low so a grain of salt needs to be taken. Despite the high market values across the board, sales prices have appeared to have reached a plateau in the last five years. With this book, it would be best to reduce holdings and convert to books with more consistent growth.
BATMAN #171
While the gold standard is the Riddler’s overall first appearance in the Golden Age, we have the opportunity to look further to his first appearance in the Silver Age with Batman #171. Below, we look at the market data for the book graded at CGC 7.5/7.0, which represents the top 24.1/34.4% of the CGC census. Overall, despite a short stagnation in sales prices from 2017-2018, we can zoom out to see a decade long track record of slow and steady growth in sales prices. Anyone that sold in 2017/18 missed out on the +50% jump in sales prices in the last year. Although Batman #171 isn’t as rare as Detective Comics #140 or #142, its market performance undoubtedly makes it an attractive long-term investment.
BATMAN #179
Since we looked at the 2nd Golden Age appearance of the Riddler, for the sake of thoroughness we’ll also take a quick look at his 2nd Silver Age appearance. Looking at the market data for the book at CGC 9.0-8.0, the market for the book unfortunately is too low in sales volume and volatile in sales prices. Batman #179 offers the worst investment outlook relative to the other books above.
“I have billions of eyes, yet I live in darkness. I have millions of ears, yet only four lobes. I have no muscle, yet I rule two hemispheres. What am I?” – The Riddler
