With the recent rise of MCU movies and shows on Disney+, many newer characters are getting very big pushes from Marvel. This is solidifying them as lasting protagonists, which is making their first keys rather valuable to collectors and speculators alike. Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Riri Williams, Sam Alexander, and now, Nadia Van Dyne.
Outlawed #1
Nadia has been with the Champions since 2017, joining the roster in Secret Empire: Uprising #1. So it was no surprise when she made her way into the cast of 2020's Outlawed #1, alongside the other Champions team members. The real key to this though is the fact that this one-shot edition will tie her into the upcoming Champions title coming out in October.
This is a key time for Nadia, as the more entangled she becomes with the lives and adventures of the other Champions members, the more likely she is to appear in upcoming films and shows. If fans start to gather around her character, she may even get her own title on the big or small screen. The potential for Nadia to go through the same rise that her fellow Champions experienced is there.
Extreme intellect, a suit made from parts and pieces of her dad's Ant-Man costume, AND specialized training from the Winter Soldier himself in the Red Room of Russia. Yeah, Nadia's not only powerful, skilled, and experienced, but she's rather likable and in many ways relatable. That's a pretty good checklist for a character to skyrocket off of.
Civil War II #1 (Free Comic Book Day)
Wasp has already had two titles under her own name as Nadia, but neither really took off or elevated her to the height a Champion deserves. Now could be the perfect time for fans new and old, to get in on her first appearance and first cover appearances. If there was ever a time for Miss Van Dyne to get a revitalization, it would be in the wake of her fellow Champions' tidal-like surge.
Nadia first appears in Civil War II #1 (Free Comic Book Day). She is featured on the last couple pages flying and hovering around a mechanical-looking area, placing down small orbs. She reveals the story of making her suit from parts of her father's. Then, finally, it shows her triggering and setting off the orb-like bombs and electrocuting the Vision from the inside-out. Her idea of how she'll introduce herself to the Avengers.
Currently, a raw copy of this book will run you around $10-20 USD. A 9.8 around $100, which is almost 50% above the FMV on GoCollect right now. However, this could just be due to the low volume of 9.8's trading hands at this point. Also the first appearance of Ulysses II, so double key. Triple key if you count key events, as this is the death of James Rhodes. (All three are listed on CGC slated comics).
All New All Different Avengers #9
The next book to look at would be Nadia's first cover appearance as Wasp in All New All Different Avengers #9. Released four days after the FCBD cover dropped, the cover highlights Wasp flying out of The Vision's upheld palm. The dark background really lends itself to the color scheme and forces your eyes to look at the highly prominent red and green hues. It's really just beautiful.
There are two other variants for this book. The Age of Apocalypse variant featured above, which, unfortunately, does not contain Wasp on the front. (Though it is still very cool in its own right.)
Then there is the Alex Ross Incentive cover. There is just something so killer about a pose of Wasp on a black and white grid background, and even cooler is the sketching and notations scribbled next to the full-color drawing. It just looks like something Nadia would have actually drawn up during her time building her suit in her father's old lab. Which just brings a whole new, cooler level to this cover.
The original cover and the AoA cover are both sitting at around $10-20 USD. The Alex Ross however is inconspicuously hidden at the moment, but seeing as it both features Wasp on the front AND is an incentive variant, the scarcity factor could play very well for a cover like this. (Pure white means tougher 9.8!)
Last Remarks
Even if Nadia doesn't skyrocket like her peers, (let's face it, reaching Ultimate Fallout #4 levels is hard for anyone), she could still see a rather large bump in fans and, therefore, demand for her first issues and covers. With Champions coming out in October, Nadia has a better chance of playing some sort of role in the larger Marvel stories.
We've all seen what even a small push from Marvel can do for a character in terms of popularity, once Nadia hits a good stride these covers could become hot quick. If that happens, then having those 9.8 covers of Nadia's FCBD and All New #9 would be all the more important. I think these covers definitely have room to grow; since the iteration of Wasp that we witnessed in the Ant-Man movie titles really seemed to have only boosted original Wasp titles like Tales to Astonish #44.
