Are you surprised that DC Comics kept the Batman Who Laughs after Dark Nights: Metal? Neither is anyone else, and he's returning in November, and if it's done well, it will only add to the legend and make his keys more valuable.
I have to be honest; I lost interest in Dark Nights: Metal. For me, there wasn't anything special about it. We saw combinations of Batman and the Justice League to make an evil super team. Let's face the truth - the concept of the evil Justice League was already done with the Crime Syndicate. And when the world was turned into an apocalyptic wasteland with the villains winning, that felt like I was reading Final Crisis again. All in all, I just didn't find there to be much originality in Metal.
However, there was one very cool thing to come out of it: The Batman Who Laughs. He had a signature look (one that borrowed heavily from the Mouth of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings) that was eerie and masochistic. The cannibalistic Robins with their one-word dialog, "Crow," being led on leashes was a great visual that helped separated this alternate version of Batman from the rest of the Batman/JL mashups. By the time the Metal story was in full swing, the Batman Who Laughs was even more sadistic than the Joker.
While this is an interesting addition to Batman's rogue's gallery of villains, the hysteria has died down. Still, you'd do well to keep an eye on those BWL keys.
There's not a lot of graded Teen Titans comics being sold, at least not when we're talking about the latest run from the Rebirth series. In the two years it's been published, there's only been five issues that have traded hands: #1, 8, 10, 12, and 18. Of course, it's TT #12 that you'll be interested in since that's the first full appearance of the BWL. So far this year, a CGC 9.8 has been up and down. Back in January, it was in the $200-250 range. In February and March, it had cracked $300 and went all the way to $441. Then came April, and it started to fall from the $400 price tag, and in May and June, it gradually fell until it consistently dipped below $300. Last month, it only hit $200 or more four times and sold for as low as $133, which was its lowest all year. However, there have been signs of life; the last sale was for $245.
It may be only for one panel and in silhouette, but this counts as the first cameo appearance of the BWL. It's not a huge seller, at least in the regular cover, but it has seen some decent sales lately; in mid-June, it sold for $72. The one collectors were after last year was the Gabrielle Dell'Otto "virgin" variant, which brought as much as $315 in November, and that was the first recorded sale of a graded 9.8 on eBay. Ever since then, it has slowly dropped. These days, it's fallen all the way to the $85-$90 range. While that is bad for the guy who paid $315, it's great news if you still need one because it's likely to fall even more before it bottoms out.
